Crescendo
by BlackInkStains
Summary: As the melody dances through the painted labyrinth alone, many hands reach out to lure it into certain danger. Only one among them can lead it into safety. Or, at least, to safety on time. Sebastian/Ciel, shounen-ai, shota; modern artist AU
1. Act I: The Boy and The Demon

**A/N:** Hello and welcome to my new multichap Crescendo!

We have a large cast here, from the reapers and the Phantomhive staff to anime-only characters such as Claude and Alois and Ash. You'll even get to see _Edgar Redmond, Maurice Cole_ and _Gregory Violet_. (I don't know why I'm doing that when I know that my take on them could stray _very_ far from the development that Yana Toboso has planned)

I hope you enjoy it! =D

**Rating**: M

**Overall warnings**: AU, Shounen ai, **Shota**, violence, trauma, mentions of non-con, harassment of a minor, _obsession_. Some really twisted stuff. May appear macabre and/or morbid from time to time. More warnings to come, but I don't want to spoil anything.

For this chapter: Introduction galore! Trust me, I usually don't do that, but considering where the story starts and that you all know the characters already, I guess I can get away with it.

**Genres**: Hurt/Comfort, Friendship, Drama, Romance, Angst, mystery and the occasional humorous moment, as well as a dash of horror and tragic elements (used sparingly).

**Pairings**: Sebastian/Ciel is the main pairing; Claude/Alois, some one-sided pairings that you will see when the time comes)

**Disclaimer**: I do not own Kuroshitsuji in any shape or form.

* * *

_Crescendo (ital. growing. Used in music, the marked part becomes gradually louder.)_

* * *

_**ACT I**_

_The Boy and The Demon_

_(Oil on canvas)_

* * *

**Chapter 1**

He didn't know what to paint.

Standing in front of a completely blank canvas he accusingly stared at his oil colours which were neatly lined up on the small table next to him, just waiting to be used. After not having lifted a brush to a canvas in two months, Sebastian's need to draw, paint, sketch, _anything_ was immense. The desire was there, but this must be one of the worst blocks he'd ever had. He could stare at a blank piece of paper for hours and nothing would come out of it. He was often outside these days, out in the forest or in London which was only twenty minutes away from his home. He was among people, observing, listening to stories. Usually he was already inspired by seeing a blank space, the need to create something was great enough to produce image after image in his head, so the additional excursions with which he was trying to inspire himself should have worked.

Still, he was pathetically unsuccessful.

"See, I told you he's staring at a canvas again. You owe me."

"We didn't bet, dear."

Sebastian sighed and put away his painting utensils. "You should ring the bell when I'm at home, not just barge in."

He could hear the grin in Undertaker's voice as chiming keys were put away. "Who says we didn't ring? You didn't hear us."

"Again," Grell's annoying voice sounded.

Sebastian turned, ready for an answer, but then his expression relaxed in pure surprise. "… Goodness. Why are you strutting around in a hooker dress?"

Grell, dressed in… pieces of red fabric that were more revealing than nakedness could ever be, looked exasperated. "It's not a hooker dress! Claude designed it."

"Well, Claude has no taste," Sebastian retorted dryly, earning manic giggles from the Undertaker. "Or did you bribe him?"

The silver-haired photographer already had his hands on Sebastian's sketch book. He only got to see old drawings, which Sebastian was almost ashamed of. This block had been there for way too long.

"I asked him nicely," Grell said. He walked over to the Undertaker, looking over his shoulder at the sketches. "However, I can see that you should be worrying about your own problems. At least your cousin gets something done. Give it a few months and you won't have much ready for the exhibition."

Undertaker started humming, demonstratively excluding himself from the conversation.

Sebastian remained calm, even though he felt like crushing Grell's windpipe beneath his fingers. "Tell me why you came here. It's almost ten pm."

"The ball," Undertaker said, "you're not at the ball."

Sebastian was obviously not when he had been standing in front of the empty canvas. He pried his sketches from the other male's fingers, briefly noticing that somehow the other had managed to get another scar around the base of his little finger.

Better not to ask about it.

"It seems I forgot about the time."

"You definitely did," Grell said, "as you're two hours late."

Sebastian rolled his eyes. "I don't even know why _you're_ in my house."

"And _I_ don't know why I'm not in your bedroom, but that's not the point." Grell raised an eyebrow at him. "The Viscount is one of your most important benefactors. It will be disastrous if you don't come."

"I have many other important benefactors," Sebastian said, his eyes moving back to the empty canvas. "I almost had an idea here."

"Right…"

Undertaker watched him as Sebastian put away his sketches. "Coming with us might help you, since your pond of inspiration seems as dry as the Sahara."

"That was almost poetic," Grell said, faintly surprised.

Undertaker cackled. "I had to leave the cookie stand for you," he said to Sebastian. "Come, get dressed. I promise you it will be worth your time, hehe~"

Sebastian rolled his eyes. "I hardly believe that." Knowing that they were right, though - the Viscount was an important benefactor -, he went to his room, the Undertaker at his heels. He didn't let Grell follow, seeing that the redhead would probably pounce on him or do something equally disturbing.

"I told you not to bring him along," he told the silver-haired male as he put together an outfit.

Undertaker shrugged. "He was the one who kidnapped me to your house. I did love the cookies they had there."

Sebastian stared at him. He'd always wondered why Undertaker and Grell were friends, but he started to guess that they probably were so that Undertaker had something to laugh at.

While he changed his clothes, the other male made a tour through his house, as he often did. There had always been paintings Sebastian wouldn't even dream of selling, so he'd hung them in the corridors. The whole Michaelis Estate had been transformed into an art exhibition since Sebastian had bought it back.

When he was dressed, Sebastian got into his car with Undertaker while Grell took the lead in his own car. The radio was switched on the minute they passed the gates, and Sebastian could listen to Undertaker singing along. It was rather strange how he knew the lyrics to every song that was played on the radio even if he only listened to gothic metal and classical music. Sebastian, bemused, kept his eyes on the road, leaving Undertaker to his singing. With his raspy voice, he was surprisingly accurate when it came to music. Every note was correct. So Sebastian didn't mind the additional noise in his car.

The Viscount's mansion was well-hidden behind a line of trees that led into a forest. Sebastian would have passed the gate had Grell not taken the lead. Undertaker wasn't a great help either, for he was busy rocking from side to side to the song that was currently playing. "What was in those cookies?" Sebastian asked as he followed the driveway.

"Chocolate," Undertaker said.

"Are you sure about that?"

The other male only giggled.

They got out of the car and had a boy - his driving licence must have arrived just yesterday - drove it away. Sebastian followed him dubiously with his eyes, but seeing that the kid managed, he decided to put any kind of damage on Lord Chamber's ('Call me Aleister!') bill.

When Grell joined them, they were led into a lavishly decorated ballroom. He immediately recognized piece played by the string quartet as one from Bach. From where he stood, seeing the musicians wasn't possible. Women In elaborate dresses were chatting in small groups scattered across the room while men were watching the dancing couples or the paintings and statues presented. Sebastian could see that five of these paintings belonged to him, as well as a statue. Aleister Chamber had bought them only a year ago.

Among the observers were Claude Faustus fashion designer, and his doll Edgar Redmond, the promising face of the Faustus brand. As he approached them together with Grell and Undertaker the blond male smiled sweetly at Sebastian who wondered whether he was planning something again. He always seemed to. "Good to see you," Edgar said.

"Certainly," Sebastian returned dryly.

Edgar's smile froze slowly as he dismissed him with one elegant movement. He started talking to Undertaker and commented curiously neutrally on the redhead's dress.

What was even more curious was the shock that was in Claude's eyes for a split second.

Sebastian almost laughed but decided against it.

"Fancy seeing you here," Claude then said, adjusting his glasses, "you've finally managed to part from your empty canvas at home."

"Fancy seeing _you_ here," Sebastian retorted lightly, "since you've adopted the little brat now. You shouldn't be out."

That caught Undertaker's attention. He looked up from listening to Edgar (who didn't say much) and Grell (who talked faster than anyone else in the room) at the same time, effectively silencing the two men. "You're a daddy?"

Claude shot him _A_ _Look_. "I'm certainly not a 'daddy'. He's my godson and his mother died from her excessive smoking and drinking habits. What else can I do but take him in?"

"You probably tried to avoid bad publicity, then," Undertaker chattered on, completely unaffected by Claude's gaze, "I knew you were heartless."

Grell seemed as if I he didn't know on whose side he should be.

Edgar actually grinned.

Claude adjusted his glasses again, his face a mask of indifference. "He _is _here."

"Even worse," Undertaker said, his giggles becoming more and more disconcerting, "you know that Ash Landers is around. He might abduct him."

"Oh, hush." Grell slapped the silver-haired male playfully. "You only wish the rumours were true so that you'd have something to laugh at."

Undertaker merely shrugged, smiling widely.

Hearing the name of the other artist, Sebastian sought him out with his eyes. Finding him turned out to be rather easy for he always dressed in pastel tones which contrasted with the dark colours all the other men were clad in. Ash was well-known for his… interesting sculptures but was also a decent painter, even though he rarely indulged in the latter, just as Sebastian didn't often indulge in sculpting, preferring the brushes and pencils and the joy of painting and carving shapes into inanimate objects.

At the moment Ash was standing next to a white crib that would fit into the Victorian Era. He had probably built it himself. Black wires were wrapped around the crib and Sebastian was quite sure that there must be the sculpture of a baby inside. Ash's art was never finished when there wasn't a sculpture. They were his most precious objects, made with care and over a very long period of time.

One of the Viscount's so-called songbirds young women and girls that lived here - was bringing him a glass of red wine. Sebastian memorized the high, laced collar against her throat and her pale blue dress and found it distinctively ironic that those girls were called songbirds when the entirety of them was mute.

Ash accepted the glass and took her chin into his hand at the same moment, startling the poor girl badly. He carefully twisted her head to the left, then to the right while taking a small sip. His gloved hand wandered over her shoulder down her arm. He kissed her hand and Sebastian could read the word 'beautiful' on his lips.

Nudging the Undertaker, Sebastian nodded at the white-haired artist who was now talking to people interested in his sculpture. "What's this one called?" he asked.

Undertaker brushed the bangs out of his eyes and pursed his lips. "I think it was 'Sin'," he then said.

"It's quite morbid," Edgar said, stepping forward, too. Sebastian almost asked him whether he had the manners to tune out a conversation that didn't involve him but decided against it.

While the Undertaker found it wonderful, Sebastian couldn't decide whether he liked Ash Lander's art or not.

A scantily clad boy made his way to Claude, rudely brushing past Sebastian to wrap his arms around the designer. "Not kidnapped yet," Sebastian heard his cousin murmur. He couldn't help the startled laugh that escaped him. Edgar, who always stood close to Claude, seemed very amused, too.

"Claude," the child whined. He was surprisingly pretty with his blond hair and angelic face. "You promised me a dance! Come on, Claude, let's dance."

Sebastian studied Claude's faintly annoyed expression and loved the kid.

Wrapping his arms around the taller man's middle, the child looked up to his guardian. "Please?"

Claude remained perfectly still.

The music had changed. A band was now filling the room with entertaining but reserved jazz music. A woman clad in an outfit that reminded of the 1920's was using her voice as if replacing an instrument. There were no lyrics, only sounds, always harmonizing with the other instruments, sometimes sultry, sometimes harsh. A few guests were watching the stage now, listening quietly.

"I can dance with you, Alois," Edgar offered, probably not without hidden intentions that involved Claude, but the boy just snarled at him. The model recoiled a little, his expression carefully guarded behind the frozen smile.

Sebastian loved the child even more.

His malicious feelings dimmed though when he spotted the Viscount himself walking towards the little group, dressed in a stark white suit that called for everyone's attention. In one hand he held a glass of champagne, on his other arm he was leading a woman who must share Grell's preference for the colour red. He toasted to the air, smiling amicably at Sebastian and the others.

"Mr Michaelis! You have finally arrived!"

Sebastian nodded. Now that he had both of them in close distance, he quickly picked up on the similarities between Edgar and Aleister. "It's nice to see you." It wasn't. "I must apologize for my delay, but I was working on something new."

Undertaker snickered.

"Oh, that is perfectly alright!" The Viscount slid his arm away from under the woman's to shake his hand. "I already guessed that you'd have lost track of time. As long as I will be able to see your new works at the next exhibition, I shall forgive you."

Smiling tightly, Sebastian assured him that there would be a decent number of new works. Aleister motioned to the woman in red. "I wanted to introduce you to this lovely lady here, a dear friend of mine. Her name is Angelina Durless and I managed to get her interested in your wonderfully ingenious art. I hope you don't mind."

Sebastian bowed and kissed the lady's hand. "I don't mind at all, Viscount Druitt."

"_Aleister_."

"… Aleister."

He politely exchanged a few words with Miss Durless or rather Madame Red, as she preferred being called while Aleister found entertainment in having a one-sided dialogue with the rest of the group. Alois kept on clinging to Claude as if he was scared that Edgar would snatch him away. Aleister unintentionally solved the problem by pulling the model to him, praising his beauty because he looked 'exactly like our dear mother.' He gushed over his half-brother, spreading his feathers like a male peacock in his pride of him. Edgar managed to seem faintly embarrassed, though Sebastian knew that he secretly drank in all the praise.

Alois stared at them, then - as if in afterthought - resumed his efforts to monopolize Claude.

Madame Red was agreeable company. She gave Sebastian an excuse to turn his back to his… acquaintances without making a rude impression. Even though she found it necessary to take in everything his clothed physique had to offer, she kept the conversation impersonal. He only found out that she was a doctor and looked after her nephew of whom she seemed very proud. The rest of their conversation was based on more trivial matters.

The finely dressed lady ended the last song on a high A, her voice fading slowly as the room almost magically fell quiet. People started applauding.

"Ah, now it's time for this evening's highlight," Madame Red said as the band and singer disappeared. She chuckled. "At least I like to think of it."

From where he stood, Sebastian had a good view of the podium on which only a concert piano stood. The Viscount got on the podium, carrying himself in his usual flamboyant manner. His guests' conversations stilled. "As an admirer of the arts, I always search for promising talents," he said to the newly-won audience, "many of which I support until they can stand on their own two feet. If they are very talented, they get to see my money a bit longer." Low chuckles filled the air at that and the Viscount self-importantly brushed stray strands out of his face. "This young violinist has a lot to offer at the tender age of thirteen, which is why I am introducing him to you this evening. He will soon have England lying at his feet, for he plays so marvellously that any other interpretation on a piece will seem naught! This is why I told him he should rather play an original piece. I introduce to you: Ciel Phantomhive!"

The crowd, obviously people that were quite used to the Viscount's hyperboles, clapped politely as the Viscount paraded over to the piano and sat down.

Then the boy appeared.

Clad in black shorts and a simple white shirt, Ciel was a sight to behold. Sebastian watched him as he languidly strolled to the centre of the stage, a small violin in his left hand and a bow in his right. He wore an eye patch over his right eye, which confused Sebastian slightly. What had happened to his eye?

Ciel came to a halt, his back straight and his facial expression unreadable. He lifted the violin to his shoulder and had a brief exchange with Aleister who openly leered at him before he turned to the audience and began to play.

It was a song with a distinctive jazzy character, which sounded very interesting with only a violin and piano. The boy didn't seem nervous in the slightest, he regally stood there and played with a controlled passion. There was substance behind the melody, behind the violin's answers to the piano. He was remarkably far for his age; Sebastian, having learnt the violin himself, could see it right away. The boy didn't even seem old enough to have so many years of experience on the instrument, but there he was, proving Sebastian wrong.

The audience was spellbound as the song went on, balancing the line between playful and serious, between mindless entertainment and musical virtuosity. It was blatantly seductive, yet also very naïve. And as the final crescendo caused Sebastian to stop breathing for a split second, the boy's gaze found his.

Ciel quickly looked away as he played the final note in _fortissimo_, the piano decorating the single note with a flourish run before it too came to a final chord.

Ciel lifted the bow from his instrument and the audience burst into loud applause. The Undertaker was clapping fascinatedly while Claude was pushing up his spectacles. Next to Sebastian, Madame Red was practically glowing.

Alois, though, seemed torn between uncertainty and wonder. It was disgustingly easy to read in his face. He carefully looked up at Claude. "How did you find that?"

Claude barely paid attention. "Very good."

Alois pursed his lips. "He's pretty."

"Yes."

"And what about me?"

Sebastian focused his attention on Madame Red again. "Is this the nephew you were talking about?"

She beamed at him. "The one and only."

"He is very talented."

The boy climbed off the stage with his small violin which gave him an excellent excuse for not shaking the hands of his new admirers. Madame Red waved and fighting his way through the crowd of guests, Ciel arrived at her side while the string quartet returned to play something more contemporary than Bach. She introduced her nephew to Sebastian who was a little bit surprised at the constant seriousness that the boy oozed.

He was also infatuating.

Smiling at the boy who didn't return the sentiment, he felt watched by numerous pairs of eyes.

"I was wondering," Madame Red said then, stopping him from turning around and seeing to whom the eyes belonged, "whether you accept commissions."

Sebastian blinked. "I do, actually. What is it that you would like me to paint?"

She put a hand on Ciel's shoulder. "My nephew."

Feeling satisfaction rising in his chest, Sebastian politely inclined his head. "I would be honoured to draw a young, talented musician."

Ciel chose to say nothing, instead searched the room with a certain tension in his beautiful features. When they relaxed, Sebastian wondered what he'd (not) seen.

One pair of eyes had left the burning place between his shoulder blades.

**OOO**

The Viscount's party continued until well past one a.m. Sebastian politely stayed until all the other guests also left, including his own group of acquaintances.

"When are you going to paint him?" Claude asked.

Sebastian shrugged. "You'd like to know that."

"Worth a shot."

"We aren't that close."

Claude did his completely bland equivalent of a huff. "What, pray tell, is closer than family?"

… Well, that was an argument. Sebastian chose to stay silent.

Alois was holding Claude's hand even though Sebastian had been told that the boy was turning fifteen very soon. Edgar had to endure poisonous glares, but the model took with a charming nonchalance and sent the boy a dazzling, yet humouring smile every time their eyes met.

His car was brought and Sebastian noted with great satisfaction that there wasn't even a minuscule scratch on the precious vehicle. After saying his goodbyes and keeping Grell at a distance so that he wouldn't receive a hug Sebastian drove home. It was already morning, but he couldn't say that he was tired. On the contrary, he was full of ideas. The evening had been an interesting source of inspiration. And Ciel… Ciel was his new project. He wanted to open the boy and read him like a book. He wanted to understand the curious emptiness and that scarred look in his visible eye.

He wanted to know what lay underneath that eye patch.

He only hoped that Ciel would allow him into his life.

In the Michaelis Estate, he threw his keys and coat into a corner in the entrance hall, as well as his shoes, and he jogged up the enormous flight of stairs. In his painting room, he changed the small canvas for one that came up to his hip and prepared his colours. Only when the first layer was finished did he realize that he was _painting_ again. It came to him like a shock. After all these weeks of effortless trying, applying colours to a canvas was almost inappropriately wonderful. He stepped back, looked at his wristwatch and decided to call it a day.

His future masterpiece wouldn't run away anytime soon.

* * *

_**(Please read!)**_

_So, the first chapter of Crescendo! I hope you enjoyed it. I guess with this plot I can go over 14 chapters, so we'll see how long this one will get. _

_Since this story will only be told from Sebastian's/Ciel's POV, there will be additional __**interludes**__ from time to time that focus on the other characters (not many, though. We'll only get to four interludes). I suggest you read those, too, since there will be some that could be insightful to the plot up to then and/or foreshadowing. While __**every new chapter comes out on Wednesdays**__, the interludes will be updated to this fic__**after an act's conclusion**__. I'll announce them, since there could be two updates in those weeks._

_**Please leave a review and tell me what you think**__. Constructive criticism is always appreciated. If there are questions, don't hesitate to ask them. This counts for future chaps as well. =D Don't worry, I'm not the type that bites without consent XD_


	2. The Boy and The Demon II

**A/N: **Thank you all so much for your reviews and favs and alerts! Special thanks goes to my new beta** Carrie2sky**, who now has the dubious pleasure of finding all my idiot mistakes! But she's doing it great and the chapters look much better now :D Hehe, I'm perfectly content XD

**Disclaimer**: I don't own Kuroshitsuji

**Chapter 2**

At two o'clock in the morning, when Ciel stuck his head out of the guest room door and started wandering around, Mozart's 'Rondo alla turca' was still being played on the piano in the ballroom.

The boy rolled his eyes at the clumsy attempts. While he didn't have anything against Mozart in particular, he was pretty sure that he was going to be very tired of this piece for years to come.

He left his tipsy aunt and an equally tipsy Viscount to play a little longer. He'd have preferred sleeping at his own home, but Aunt Anne hadn't even felt like going at all. She'd rather reminisce together with the Viscount and a glass of wine. Ah, the good old times at the university. It was true - if Ciel had listened correctly – that they hadn't seen each other in a while. Angelina might be older than the Viscount, but with the help of money and an actual _brain_, Aleister had managed to start studying early so that they had started and graduated at the same time.

Hearing a painfully wrong chord, Ciel decided to retire to his room again. He was tired and exhausted. And listening to all these hopeless attempts at becoming decent drunk pianists didn't help his oncoming headache. So he took the way he'd come, wrapping himself tighter in his morning robe.

The prospect of going to bed again shortly after such vivid nightmares terrified him. His feet shuffled over the lightwood floor as he took in the dimly lit corridor stretching out in front of him.

There was a girl standing by one of the doors.

Ciel froze in his tracks, wondering where she'd come from and when. He hadn't heard a door close, so she might have been sneaking around like him. She was around his age with flaxen hair and an aesthetically pleasing appearance. The dress with the high collar that she must have worn that evening was still in place, and she was gripping the hem of her dress in what seemed to be nervousness.

Behind them, giggles and laughter and wrong notes on the piano drifted past open ballroom doors and reached the ears of the pair.

Ciel wondered what lay behind the door, but he masked his curiosity with indifference. The songbird was silently regarding him now. Then, slowly, hesitantly, she approached him. Ciel contemplated brushing past her, but he found himself too curious about what she would do.

It wasn't much, yet too much already for his taste.

Stopping in front of him, she carefully detangled a hand from the hem of her dress and lifted it to his cheek. Ciel flinched at the contact, slapping her hand away in reflex. "Don't do that," he told her.

Then he quickly walked away.

He stopped behind a corner, only to listen to the _pianissimo_ of her steps. Then there was the soft thump of her back connecting heavily with the door behind her, as if she didn't want to muster up any more strength.

Ciel still wondered what she was doing there. But he didn't go back; he decided to face the terrifying notion of sleep. Everything else would be procrastination.

**OOO**

"So," Ciel said slowly as they were having brunch in the dining hall. It was already November and far too cold to sit outside, even though the friendly light of the sun was trying to mislead them. "How come they are all mute?"

Aleister dabbed his mouth with a napkin. "Who?"

"Your songbirds, of course." Ciel frowned. "Who else?"

The girl from earlier that day was sitting at the Viscount's right side, probably being something like the girl of the day as she was the only songbird in the room. She chanced Ciel a glance, but resorted to picking around in her meal.

"Oh, _that_." Aleister rested a hand on the girls' shoulder which she professionally ignored and sighed dramatically. "I found them like this, you know. Some were born mute. Some witnessed truly horrible things and have a psychological blockade. Some of them were severely hurt and lost the ability to speak. I've gathered all of them and I'm trying to give them a good life since they happen to be orphans; am I not, dear?"

The girl looked at him and raised an eyebrow.

"Yes, of course I am!" the Viscount said, grinning at her. "Teenage rebellion," he said to Madame Red. "She'd rather be outside with the other girls instead of accompanying me today."

The girl attacked her meal with renewed vigour, rarely bringing the fork to her mouth but glowering at the dishware as if it was the fork's fault.

The Viscount smiled for both of them and combed a hand through her flaxen hair.

With his frown still in place, Ciel regarded his aunt who seemed persuaded by the explanation. That was either because she had just woken up with a slight hangover or because there was no reason for her to find anything odd about this situation. He didn't know whether he could actually ask any of those girls; these were personal questions, and maybe the Viscount really had a heart for beautiful mute orphan girls, no matter how strange it sounded. Even the press and people believed him, though they tended to take it with much humour.

At the age of (almost) thirteen, Ciel had already seen more than enough grown-ups in their whole lives. He just couldn't help but be sceptic.

They left shortly after their meal. Angelina didn't want to stay the whole Sunday (because she "didn't want to be a burden to Aleister"; yet Ciel knew that she just wanted the rest of the weekend for herself), and the Viscount brought them to the entrance hall after a long debate of why they could/shouldn't stay and an additional discussion whether Ciel's birthday party should be thrown here or not.

"We _do_ have a house," Ciel tried to put in, but was ignored.

The songbird watched him. Maybe she was trying to be solidary when she shrugged at the Viscount's behaviour in particular. A small smile adorned her lips. Ciel rolled his eyes at the two adults and she hid her mouth behind her hand.

"Then we'll do it that way," Angelina said, grinning widely at her friend that had probably by now reached the best friend status. She turned to Ciel. "Couldn't get a better party location for your birthday, eh?"

"I wouldn't know," Ciel answered dryly as he got into his shoes.

The Viscount laughed and the boy flinched at the feeling of a hand on his lower back. "Oh, dear." Aleister retracted the offending limb immediately. "Did I do something wrong?"

Angelina, who Ciel had hoped was on his side, merely waved. "Not at all, he does that a lot… Long story."

"Robin," Aleister said, and Ciel almost corrected him when he understood that a robin was a _songbird_, "if there is anything that causes you chagrin, please inform me about it and I shall make sure that it will be banished from your life!"

"No need," Ciel answered politely, throwing yearning looks at the exit, "I feel perfectly fine."

And he was, if he blacked out the nightmares, the fear of touches and tried not to be triggered into a panic attack.

He was fine.

**OOO**

Monday.

Ciel entered the school building with a not-so-impeccable posture as he was still tired from the weekend. In the corridor, just one corner away from the assembly hall, three pairs of arms managed to sling around him. Ciel almost jumped out of his skin, shocked at the sudden display of affection. The only thing that kept him from losing control over his body way the fact that he knew who those insolent people were. Only this was what kept him from wildly thrashing around. Even though the people who'd chosen to annoy him with their presence were very quick to show their love, they usually knew their boundaries.

This time, they'd probably (conveniently) forgotten about it.

A sticky pair of lips touched his cheek, then a giggle sounded next to his ear, sugary-sweet, causing his teeth to rot. "Good morning, Ciel!"

"If anybody else decides to kiss me, I'm going to do something painful to them," Ciel warned and wriggled out of the group hug, leaving his friends to embrace each other. He wiped the lip-gloss off his cheek and glowered at them.

Soma was the first to end the embrace, grinning widely and rather stupidly at Ciel. "It's a new week, you shouldn't be starting it with such an expression on your face."

Ciel calmly headed for the assembly hall. (He'd rather skip, though.)

"Didn't you attend Viscount Druitt's party?" Lizzie asked brightly.

"Tell us about it!" Finny said, sounding equally bright.

Ciel couldn't understand how they could be like that on a _Monday_. After all these years, he still hadn't quite found out their secrets. He almost assumed it was genetics.

"I did." He turned to them, looking into excited faces. "There's not a lot to say about it. I met Sebastian Michaelis and saw Ash Landers, Claude Faustus –"

"You met Claude!" Lizzie called, cradling her large black Faustus bag to her chest. "Was Edgar there, too?"

Ciel nodded and noticed how 'saw' had very quickly transformed into 'met'. That must be how rumours were born.

During Assembly, the young students were introduced to a new boy. Ciel thought he'd met him at the party… It must have been the boy clinging to Claude. He'd heard about the designer having taken in a boy, but he hadn't thought he'd meet him or go to the same school with him.

The boy – Alois –spotted him across the small hall, his eyes narrowing while his smile remained perfectly intact. When the students were released, he caught up with Ciel and his group – just what the younger male had wanted to prevent. The blonde had been sending him evil glares throughout the rest of the evening at the Viscount's, and Ciel didn't even know what for. He therefore preferred staying out of the other's way since he didn't feel like getting into fights for something he probably couldn't even influence.

"Ciel," the boy said, speaking as if his tongue was split between open anger and well-disguised interest. He was moving with a certain grace to every step, his posture straight and proud. "So nice to meet you here. I didn't know you attended to this school."

Since his friends had stopped, Ciel did the same, turning to face the blonde boy. "I didn't know you'd come here."

"_Claude_ was very insistent about me switching to a school that fits my calibre." Alois smiled. "Who are your friends?"

Lizzie immediately rushed forward, taking Alois' hand and shaking it eagerly. "I'm Elizabeth, Ciel's cousin, but please call me Lizzie!"

Soma and Finny introduced themselves, smiling pleasantly at Alois. "A friend of Ciel is my friend, too," the former added, as if for good measure.

Ciel couldn't help but discreetly roll his eyes. "Well, I do hope that you'll have a pleasant time at our school. If you need any help-"

"In fact, I do," the boy replied haughtily. He approached the younger one, lifted his arms and set them on his shoulders. Ciel refused to stiffen at the contact, lest Alois think something incorrect. Since there were layers of clothes between their skin, the task was easy to accomplish. Alois leaned in close, assaulting his personal space, which very few people dared to do. "I can't see in you what he does."

Honestly confused, Ciel wanted to ask what Alois assumed he'd done, but the older boy let go, his expression turning from murderous to happy in the span of a mere second. He smiled at Lizzie, Finny and Soma. "So, does anyone care to show me around?"

The three walked ahead with Alois, while Ciel just stood there for a moment, dumbstruck, before he gathered his wits and went after them. He could already see where this was heading.

Alois turned to him and smiled. "You wouldn't want to fall behind, would you, Ciel?"

"This is not a competition," Ciel muttered, keeping his pace, "and I'm certainly not participating."

Sometimes, though, it seemed that there were things that he couldn't decide. And hadn't he already learned that fact the hard way?

**OOO**

When Ciel got into the car after school, his aunt was sitting in the passenger's seat. Ciel, rather annoyed from having spent every break with Alois and his own friends - who were fascinated by the blonde because he was a _dancer_ and Claude's little ward and Ciel's (best) friend – glowered at her. Anne pursed her lips and cocked her head to the side. "Looks like someone has her period."

"What are you doing here?" Ciel asked her.

"Seeing my nephew." She motioned for their chauffeur Bard to drive. "Is that forbidden?"

In his peripheral vision, Ciel saw Alois happily skipping to a sleek black car, the female students basically tripping over each other behind him to get a glimpse of the man who was sitting inside in the backseat of the vehicle.

"Where are we going?" he asked her as the boy was out of sight.

"Home," Anne said as the car took the usual route. "You should take a shower first and change into more decent clothes."

"Whatever for?" Ciel asked. In the same breath, he noticed that his aunt was wearing one of her more elegant dresses.

"I managed to make an appointment with Mr Michaelis right away last weekend," she said, smiling at him from where she sat before she turned to face the road again. "For the next couple days, you'll be at his house, holding still while he paints your portrait."

Sounded like fun. Thinking of all the things he could do in the time he'd sit in front of a stranger, Ciel sighed but didn't object. He knew it would make his aunt happy if he complied, and since a very difficult day would arrive soon, grumbling wasn't an option.

But –

"Why isn't he coming to us when he's drawing my portrait by your wish?"

There was a short silence. Then Anne took a deep breath and said in her usual 'You don't understand this since you aren't a female'-tone: "Because he offered to draw it at his place and I can't pass up the chance to see this man's house."

And Ciel really didn't understand it.

Those women...

At his house, he only got the chance to take a shower and change into the clothes that Anne had lain out for him. He grabbed a chocolate bar from his stash before he went back into the car. His aunt was now sitting next to him and Ciel could see Bard's amused grin in the front mirror as she fussed over his hair, trying to comb the last stubborn strands out of his face. "It's not funny," Ciel muttered at Bard's reflection. The chauffeur chuckled softly and focused on the road.

By the time Anne was satisfied with Ciel's appearance, having bothered him in irregular intervals during the whole drive, they were passing the gates of the Michaelis Estate. Ciel stared at the mansion that was roughly three times the size of his own home, and almost as large as the Viscount's residence. Since when did artists live that comfortably?

Sebastian was waiting by the door as Bard let them out in front of the stairs leading to the house. Anne immediately shook his hand, reminding Ciel of an older version of Lizzie earlier that day. The artist looked down at him, extending his hand, but Ciel preferred nodding over skin-to-skin-contact from strangers. Sebastian let his hand sink and stepped aside. When he entered the house, his gaze was immediately stuck to the opposite wall of the entrance hall, where twin staircases led to the next storey. From the space between them, there were two pairs of eyes watching him. He quickly realized that those were just life-sized paintings of a woman and a man, but the impression stuck with him nevertheless.

"May I take a closer look at that?" Ciel asked.

Sebastian showed something akin to surprise, then cocked a perfectly shaped eyebrow. Ciel understood what was happening here: He was being reminded of his rudeness from earlier. "Why not," Sebastian finally said, "take off your jacket and shoes and you are free to walk around."

Ciel did as he was told and then walked over the lush carpet in the entrance hall. Everything was held in a reddish brown, and even though the ceiling was high, it still felt oppressing. Ciel came to a halt in front of the large painting of the couple. They were both raven-haired and very pale, standing with their backs to each other and assessing everyone who entered. The woman wore her hair open and was clad in a wine red dress, looking very stern while the man, dressed in a fashionable suit, was almost smiling haughtily.

"My parents," somebody said next to Ciel. Sebastian was standing there, looking at the two with an indifferent expression. "I painted them from memory."

Ciel's breath almost hitched. Taking in the appearance of the man, he didn't expect him to be anywhere over twenty-five. "Are they…?"

Sebastian nodded. "It was a car crash, six years ago."

Oh… "My condolences," Ciel said politely.

"It's alright." Sebastian smiled at his father. Then he brought his hands together and turned around. "Would you first like to have a look at a part of the house or do you want me to show you where Ciel would look best?"

"I'd love to see this magnificent house first," Anne replied from behind Ciel. She probably didn't hear the short exchange between Ciel and Sebastian as she'd been looking at a still life hanging by the right stairwell.

"Of course." Sebastian offered his arm and she took it with a smile, letting him lead her up the stairs.

Ciel huffed but followed them. Since there were a lot of works hanging on the walls of the rooms and corridors, Ciel took his time to look at them, knowing that they were talking loud enough for him to find them again. Sometimes, he saw a little sculpture, the largest as tall as he was. All in all, the mansion was a wonderful place, reminding him of older times and full of interesting things to see.

Sebastian even had a music room.

Ciel also noted that the man had three violins, a concert piano, a guitar, shelves full of sheet music, a wonderful view of the garden and… an easel. There was a wall decorated with photographs facing the balcony and while Sebastian explained to Anne that the guitar belonged to a friend who was avid on teaching him how to play, Ciel spotted said friend on one of the photos. It was a young man with blond and black hair. He had his head turned to the camera, his fingers in the middle of dancing over the strings of a black guitar, the foot that wasn't tugged underneath him dangling back and forth from the chair he was sitting on.

Sebastian was also in the picture, fingers and cheek coloured by charcoal, standing in front of an easel and looking very exasperated.

Ciel almost chuckled at that. _Almost_.

Sebastian also showed them his studio in which a covered canvas rested in a corner. Ciel pointed at it. "Working on something?"

"Yes," Sebastian answered, proud for some reason Ciel didn't understand.

"Why do you cover it?"

"Nobody is allowed to see my unfinished work." Anne was taking in every detail while the artist discreetly watched her as if worried that she'd touch anything. Ciel had found a difference in Sebastian's gaze when it fell on him or on his aunt. The painter didn't look at her the way men looked at women they found interesting, he rather seemed mildly put off by her and her efforts. The way he looked at _Ciel_, though…

Spoke of interest.

It wasn't quite the interest he was used to. Ciel had seen different versions of that look _(perverse interest sparkling in the eyes of men with large, sweaty hands and -)_

But Sebastian's interest seemed different. He wasn't interested in a crying boy's body, but rather wanted to rip him apart and study every shred of him –

_(and in the end, it was just like they had done-)_

"Are you alright?"

Ciel blinked once, twice, then blushed at his own mistake and took a step back before the man's hand could make contact with his body. He usually knew better than letting the memories get to him. "Are we going to start today or what?"

Sebastian shrugged elegantly. "If that is what you wish."

They went to the saloon that was coloured in cream and beige where Sebastian moved an armchair around until he liked its position. He pushed the curtains aside and then went to get his painting utensils.

As his footsteps faded, Anne sat down in the armchair, smiling excitedly. Ciel felt better seeing her like that again. "This mansion is wonderful," she said. "It was a good idea of Sebastian" –first name basis? Ciel frowned – "to draw the portrait here. It adds a certain… flair."

"Don't get too comfortable," Ciel told her.

She chuckled. "I'm only going to be here this one time. At this time I'm usually still working, have you already forgotten?"

Ciel checked the watch on his mobile's display and silently agreed. So she was going to leave him alone with a stranger in said stranger's house and think that everything was going to turn out just fine?

"Don't give me that glare," she said wagging a finger at him before she leaned back into the armchair. "Things will never get better if you don't try to work through it."

_That_, Ciel wanted to say, _is definitely not the right way to do this._

Sebastian came back, and while he set up his utensils, Anne let Ciel sit down, fussing over him again, he should sit that way, no, that way… it was hard to believe that this portrait was supposed to be _his_ birthday present, not hers. But she just wanted him to look his best, she always _wanted_ the best for him, always tried to compromise in order to help him should either his asthma or his bad memories get the better of him (though he was sure he'd be better off if she didn't try to help him with his mental scars). Aunt Anne was always trying to move the next mountain for him; she just loved him that much, and she really wanted her nephew to get better.

She wanted to help him in letting his scars heal.

At least that was what Ciel told himself when she started brushing his fringe over his right eye. That was what he was trying to convince himself of when she reached behind his head to open the knot that held his eye patch in place.

She was just trying to help.

* * *

_And that was chapter two. Keep the reviews coming, dears, tell me what you think, I'd really love that ;D_


	3. The Boy and The Demon III

**Chapter 3**

The boy had tensed to a point where Sebastian anticipated the sound of him crumbling into little pieces. His aunt was holding the eye patch in one hand while the other was strategically placing strands of hair in front of the uncovered eye.

"If it helps," Sebastian said from behind the canvas as he started sketching the surroundings, "I can't see anything."

"Oh, but I'm sure you wish you could," the boy muttered under his breath as soon as Madame Red stepped aside.

Since he was right, Sebastian couldn't deny it. So he just acted as if he'd never heard it. "If you would just relax," he said, noting how stiff the boy was, "I'd be very grateful."

Nothing happened.

Sebastian cocked an eyebrow. The boy wanted his eye patch back, but he guessed that this wasn't going to happen anytime soon. If he wanted to get a nice portrait out of this, Ciel really would have to relax a little.

"I don't lie," he continued, wondering what could reassure this kid so that he could just _do his job_ and do it _well_, "so I'm telling the truth when I say that there is nothing to see. But," he added the moment the boy opened his mouth, "if you wish, we may put your eye patch back on. I can ignore it while painting."

Ciel drew his eyebrows together, looking at him sceptically while he was trying to persuade the boy's aunt into giving him back the eye patch. "I don't want it back," Ciel said just before Madame Red could be convinced of Sebastian's arguments. Such a defiant child. "I can perfectly relax without it."

Sebastian was soon going to throw something at him. However, he maintained his friendly expression, no matter how hard it was at the moment. "Then do it."

With a sour expression, the boy leaned back in the armchair, his visible eye focussing on a spot behind Sebastian ('Angelic Symphony' was the picture's name, done with pastel colours). Slowly, the tension left him. A distinctive edginess was still present in the exaggerated stiffness of his posture, but his facial expression was void of tension.

Sebastian could finally focus on his art. The charcoal sketch didn't take long, but he nevertheless spent additional time on it. When he looked very closely, he could see a jagged, pink line beneath the tips of teal-coloured fringe. They were too short to cover the scar completely. Upon seeing it, there was nothing he wanted to do more than walk over to the boy and just lift the hair out of his eye. But that would be very selfish, so he simply entertained the idea instead of compulsively acting on it.

"Who is this picture for?" he asked lightly as he noticed that the boy was starting to move out of boredom.

"Me," Ciel replied in the most disinterested tone one could manage.

Upon hearing this, Sebastian immediately dropped his hand from the canvas. "That sounded very enthusiastic."

"I mean no disrespect…" Ciel shrugged, letting the rest of the sentence hang in the air.

"But?" Sebastian put back his piece of charcoal and challengingly raised an eyebrow. "Could it be that you don't want to be drawn at all?"

At his words Ciel's eyes darted to his aunt. "That's not true."

"Is it because of the eye patch?"

Another negative response, even though Sebastian couldn't shake off the feeling that Ciel _did_ have a problem with exposing the eye. He also seemed to have a very good reason for that, if one considered that scar. Sighing at the effort that handling children brought along (how did Claude manage his brat?), Sebastian quickly thought of something. It was the boy's present after all. "When I draw somebody… I want them to be able to recognize themselves in what they see in the product, especially when it comes to private paintings. This" – he nodded at the artificial way the boy was sitting – "is nothing you will like when it's finished." He turned to Madame Red. "No offence intended."

"None taken," the woman replied with a pensive expression. He could have bet she'd disagree, but nothing came.

"I would advise you," Sebastian continued, turning to the boy again, "to go home, get the things you like, dress the way you want to, and then come back tomorrow. We shall choose the room you want to be drawn in and you can sit or stand or do as you wish as we start afresh."

That seemed to spark Ciel's interest, even though his expression was still guarded. "It at least sounds like an idea."

"What kind of artist would I be if I couldn't do that?" Sebastian smirked. Aunt and nephew got up and he showed them to the door when the chauffeur arrived. Watching them go, he sensed that he hadn't done this without hidden intentions. He was trying to understand Ciel and what helped him better than this painting? It would at least be a start. He was burning to see what Ciel would bring along the next day. Surely the boy would challenge him.

After all, Ciel was what he liked to see as an equivalent of a muse.

**OOO**

Ciel did not disappoint.

He returned wearing a set consisting of a black shirt with ruffles under a burgundy jacket, shorts in the same colour and black knee-high stockings. His violin was with him, lying in its case. He pressed a sports bag into Sebastian's hands and went up the stairs without any greeting. This time, Sebastian overlooked it. It wasn't as if he'd expected anything else. The boy seemed to have an aversion towards strangers.

"Where is that saloon from yesterday?" Ciel called down from the right staircase.

Sebastian smirked. "I'll show you." He jogged up the stairs and the boy followed him. When they arrived in the saloon, Ciel chose to sit on the cream-coloured Victorian style couch that Sebastian had to pull into the centre of the room as a result. Then the boy took a medium-sized but beautiful chessboard out of his sports bag and placed the black and white figures on it. Sebastian quickly left to fetch his utensils again, and when he returned, the boy was finished. Sheets of music were scattered over one part of the sofa and he had unpacked his violin, tightening the bow hair while slouching comfortably on the sofa. The instrument was propped up against his upper thigh.

Sebastian stared. "I'm going to charge more for all those details." Not to mention how _long_ this would take.

"Then draw them well," Ciel retorted, sitting up a little to fit the violin between his shoulder and chin. There was this forced relaxation in his movements that Sebastian hoped would soon disappear. "I hope you don't mind if I practice a little bit."

_Whatever keeps you calm._ "Not at all. I'd love to get a private concert." Setting up everything he needed, Sebastian found himself amused when he spotted the first sheet of the piece. "The Devil's Trill? You can play that?" The additional 'at your age' fell under the metaphorical table.

Ciel looked at him with a bored expression.

"I couldn't do that until I was eighteen." He began his sketch, mentally noting that the boy was almost smiling in satisfaction now. "But I started much later than you."

"Probably." Ciel's smile grew a fraction even though he still seemed very tense. That child was horribly sceptic of him.

Sebastian looked up when the boy started to play, the sweet yet dramatic melody filling the air. "Is that Beethoven?" he asked after a while.

Ciel gave him a minuscule smile in response as he continued the solo. It sounded lonely without an orchestra supporting it, but Sebastian didn't mind. He was glad to see that while he played his body was gradually relaxing, making it easier for Sebastian to capture the boy's essence in his work. Perhaps he knew that at least for now, there was no reason to be tense and overtly on guard.

When the solo finished, Sebastian was almost done with the sketch. There was a long stretch of silence that could have been filled, but he didn't feel the need to. Besides, it was a comfortable silence. After several moments, Ciel began a less difficult piece, slightly turning his head towards Sebastian. "Is it worth it?"

Sebastian, in the progress of mixing his colours, halted for a split second, slightly confused. "Pardon?"

"I looked you up, you know." The piece, as if mocking the artist, changed into major now, played at a slightly faster pace. The bright tone didn't go too well with Sebastian.

And maybe he wasn't that tense anymore because he'd come prepared.

(Know your enemy, even though Sebastian was hardly a threat.)

"The Michaelis family line dates back to 1700. It is split into an outer and an inner circle, the latter consists of the family head's closest relatives, excluding the younger siblings. Throughout the years, this hierarchy hasn't changed, causing tension between the two groups.

"Your father was the last head of the family. You, as the only son, could have been the next owner of your family's hotels."

"I see you've done your research," Sebastian muttered, starting to prepare the colours needed for today. The information on him and his family could be found if one cared to look for it. Most didn't.

"Better than well," Ciel said, "for there is a part that not many know about. Ten years ago, your father declared one of your cousins his heir as you publicly declined to be the one. What people don't know is that prior to this declaration, you'd already been disowned, not because you wanted it but because you wished to study art."

Sebastian couldn't help but be surprised. Where had he gotten _that_ from? This boy was even more interesting than he'd thought. "Being heir to the Michaelis family has always been somewhat strenuous and restricting. You can't lead a chain of hotels by studying art." He smiled. "But it was worth it." He almost asked why Ciel would want to know about something of this nature when he saw the boy's pensive expression as he was regarding his violin. Hadn't Ciel been the son of a CEO? Sebastian had paid attention to that piece of news two – almost three – years ago when England had been scandalized about the murder of the boy's parents. Only ashes and burnt bone fragments had been found. Rumour had it that many bones had been removed before the police could arrive.

Sebastian had painted a picture back then.

As far as he knew, the company inherited by Ciel had been given into the care of his other aunt, Frances Middleford until he was of age. By asking Sebastian whether doing what he loved had been worth it, Ciel showed that he wasn't sure which path he should take.

It wasn't Sebastian's place to help him.

The happy tune went on and on and on, provoking and increasingly unnerving. After a while, Sebastian couldn't stand to hear it anymore. "Would you mind playing something else?"

Ciel barely grinned and offered Beethoven's 'Eroica'.

Even worse.

Sebastian rolled his eyes but couldn't help the small smile pulling at the corner of his mouth.

The boy's chauffeur came two hours later to pick him up. "Do you mind if we just leave it this way?" Sebastian asked.

"This is _your_ house. _I_ should be asking." Ciel raised an eyebrow at him, but then he shook his head and only packed his violin and bow. Clutching the case in his hand, he let Sebastian lead the way back to the main door.

"See you tomorrow," Sebastian said, smiling as the boy went to the car.

Ciel huffed and climbed in the vehicle's backseat. The chauffeur closed the door and nodded at him in acknowledgement, but the artist couldn't help but wonder why he was smoking when had a child to drive around.

… Well, that hadn't gone as bad as expected.

Looking into the sky, he noticed that yes, it was really pitch black outside. This day had passed fast as he'd been working on two paintings. It was easy to for him to lose his sense of time when he was doing what he loved most. Deciding that he should stretch his legs, he quickly put on his outdoor clothes and closed the door behind him. He could walk around the mansion and have a small workout that way, but he found himself leaving the grounds. His way unsurprisingly brought him to Undertaker's house, which was a few blocks away. As he knocked on the door, he wondered who'd be at his house at such a time. Somehow, there was always someone at the Undertaker's, but usually it was Gregory Violet, his apprentice. Sometimes Grell was there. Even Edgar (and his little blond friend) visited from time to time when his and Undertaker's free time happened to overlap. (Claude didn't. He always claimed he couldn't care less. Nobody but Edgar actually minded.) Undertaker could bake, listen, and loved having company, _plus_ he had a wonderful garden. No wonder everyone was visiting. Once one got used to the fact that there were dead people in the room across the kitchen, since that was where the mortuary began, Undertaker's home was the place to go to be entertained or cheered up when needed.

The photographer/mortician opened the door, smiling widely at his friend. "Welcome, Sebastian. You haven't visited me in a long time~"

"Since everyone is visiting you, I'm sure you didn't mind."

Undertaker let him in. "My house is more often void of visitors than not, actually. Of _living_ visitors, that is. The dead like me; they usually come in loads to get ready for their final parties." He cackled – and that was where Sebastian understood that this should have been a _joke_ – as they went to the kitchen. "How come you grace me with your presence? We've already seen each other this weekend. Not that I mind having you around…"

"I've been taking a walk, that's all." Sebastian listened to the beeps of the stove as Undertaker switched it on to heat water. "So I decided to exploit your hospitality since you came by late at night on Saturday."

Undertaker grinned widely. "Trying to exploit me will only end in you having to entertain me a bit more."

Together they went into the living-room. Undertaker let himself fall onto the couch while Sebastian chose to sit on the same exemplar on the opposite. There was a small coffee table between the two pieces of furniture on which Undertaker rested his socked feet. This time, Sebastian got to see _The Simpsons _in pink. The bright pair of socks contrasted comically with the man's gothic attire. Undertaker really liked shuffling around in the brightest socks the market had to offer.

"So, how's the boy?"

Sebastian blinked and then saw what the other male was holding. "What- When did you take that?" He reached across the table, snatching his phone from Undertaker's hand.

The silver-haired man waggled his fingers with absurdly long nails. "That must have been magic."

"Or stealing, who knows?" Sebastian pocketed the phone.

"You can hardly call it stealing when I'm giving it back to you." Leaning back in his chair, Undertaker folded his hands in front of his chest. "The boy?"

"Knows that I've been disowned." Sebastian shrugged. "Now that he knows about that particular detail, we should get even by him telling me about that month."

"The one during which everyone thought he'd died?" Undertaker turned his head when somebody entered the living-room. "He wouldn't tell you."

"Not yet." Sebastian nodded at the newcomer.

"Maybe you should leave a few things unsaid." Undertaker watched as a small tray with three steaming cups of tea (and four glasses containing other beverages) was set down. Realization dawned on his face, followed by a small smile. "I see what you're trying to do here. It doesn't mean anything if you try getting things out of him because your art might benefit from his secrets..."

"You're mistaken," Sebastian said as his friend (acquaintance) accepted the offered cup. "It's not because of my art."

"Yes, it is. You've always been like that. Remember the last one who'd had the bad luck of becoming your source of inspiration?" Undertaker cackled. "You tricked her, played her, had an extremely creative phase and then dumped her. Mind you, I was the one who found her face down in a pond by the forest… Thank you by the way, Gregory~" He took a small sip. "Even though you didn't have to do that."

"The water was boiling," the raven-haired said, "I was in the kitchen… why not?" Due to his monotonous voice, the question sounded more like a statement.

"Infallible logic," Undertaker muttered.

"Mind if I take a seat?"

"Not at all," Sebastian said, smiling. Gregory was _always_ at Undertaker's house. So often that it surprised you when he declared he'd be going home. He almost lived here.

"Tell me, Greggie, were around when Sebastian found his last muse?" Undertaker asked. "My memory tends to fail me, and I'm not even thirty yet."

"I've been around long enough to see the boy before the young lady," Gregory supplied, completely unfazed as he gave Sebastian the other cup of tea.

Undertaker blinked. Sebastian too. He'd almost finished school back then. Gregory couldn't have been older than… eleven?

"I've been helping you with the corpses since you lured me in as a ten-year-old," the youngest among them said to Undertaker, looking at him from beneath his hoodie. "I used to see the boy around." A pause in which he looked at Sebastian. "I also saw what became of him: He broke. Badly."

"Because of the car that ran him over?" Sebastian asked.

Undertaker immediately burst into a laughing fit. Gregory remained unaffected, blowing into his beverage with a straw. "He walked onto the street knowing that the car was too close."

"Truck," Undertaker corrected, giggling. He had the _weirdest_ sense of humour. "And look at you: The two of you had been close, yet you don't even care."

Leaning back, Sebastian shrugged. "I fail to see what you're trying to prove."

"You find them during a creative block," Undertaker said, "you charm them, tempt them, and then you suck them dry and rip them apart." He nipped thoughtfully at his tea. "If I didn't know better, I'd say you take something away and leave the vessel while you benefit from what you've reaped. And yet, when you are full of ideas and they are lying at your feet, you don't even blink as they pass away. When your creativity runs dry again, you find the next one. None of them matters to you, not even while you're reading them like books."

Sebastian stayed silent, wavering between untamed anger and… indifference.

"You can't tell me you're not thinking of your art while trying to learn all of little Phantomhive's secrets." Undertaker grinned widely. "I'd like to see you care about one of them, one day. It will be hilarious."

Sebastian didn't say anything to his defence, knowing that once Undertaker had made up his mind about something, changing his view was nothing more than wasted effort.

(And maybe because there was a dash of truth in what the man said.)

However, he had one thing to say: "It's not my fault that they died."

"I wonder," Gregory murmured against his straw.

Silence emerged, weighing heavily on Sebastian's shoulders. He wondered whether he was the only one feeling that way. Perhaps he was, for Undertaker would have broken the quiet earlier otherwise.

"To get to a more agreeable subject…" He lifted a decorative pillow and handed him a lavender-coloured envelope. Sebastian didn't even ask why he would keep a stash of letters underneath a sofa pillow. "Did he invite you, too?"

"What's this?" Sebastian took the envelope and opened it. It turned out to be an invitation to Ash Landers' Sylvester party at the artist's house. "I haven't checked my mail today. Surely he's invited me, he always does."

"Are you going to be there this time?" Undertaker asked.

Why not? He'd attend this one time.

* * *

_So, chapter 3! I hope you enjoyed it._

_I also hope you'll tell me how you liked this chapter! I reallly love hearing from you and always read your reviews :D Reviews keep me motivated._


	4. The Boy and The Demon IV

**Disclaimer: **Still no.

**A/N:** In celebration of Maurice being stalked by Sebastian and Ciel in the latest chapter of Kuro, he shall also appear in the latest chapter of this fic! As always, beta credits go to Carrie2sky who makes my chapters look pretty =) I may also add that this display of a panic attack may not be that accurate. Please bear that in mind. Enjoy!

**Chapter 4**

There was an invitation to Ash Landers' Sylvester party in the mailbox. Ciel had to promise his aunt that they'd go there. Secretly though, he would have enjoyed spending that evening with his useless friends. Since everyone invited was only allowed to bring one guest, Ciel told them he couldn't and wouldn't smuggle them inside when he informed them of his plans for Sylvester, just for good measure.

He tried to see the good side in attending the party. There were some, for example, the possibility of more people hearing of and seeing him.

But his forced positive view shattered very quickly as Alois strutted over to them, grinned sharply at Ciel and asked him whether he'd go to Ash's party.

He sighed inwardly. "Yes."

"Claude has been invited, and he said he'd take me with him." Alois smiled wider when Lizzie made an awed sound. "Isn't that nice of him?"

"Sure," Ciel drawled. He had known that one guest was allowed, but _pets_?

"And do you know what else he's doing?" Alois continued. "He's taking me to a shooting today, and it's going to be in a large mansion."

"Will Edgar be there?" Lizzie butted in excitedly.

Alois, in the middle of spreading his arms to show how big this mansion was let them drop and regarded her coolly. "… Yes."

So Edgar seemed to be a sore subject, too. Ciel wondered what _he'd_ done.

"Anyway" – Alois changed expressions faster than one could blink – "I'm going to see you there, Ciel. If you may excuse me, I've got a class to attend."

As he stalked away, Ciel watched him go, slightly bewildered. He wouldn't be at any shooting today; he'd be at Sebastian's –

Oh.

_Splendid_.

**OOO**

When Ciel saw the woman standing by Sebastian's door smoking a cigarette, he just wanted to crawl back into the car and tell Bard to drive him home. There was this dreaded feeling that Alois was waiting for him behind the door, and after another strenuous school day with him, Ciel's patience wasn't only running low, it had been lit and had exploded in his face with a deafening bang, all due to Alois' maddening attitude. The boy seemed torn between hating and wanting to befriend him, and Ciel had almost decided there and then to make the blond hate him so that he would hopefully be left in peace.

No such luck, he quickly realized. People like Alois wouldn't let you alone despite their hate of you.

Even if the blond was waiting behind the door, going back home wasn't an option. It would mean that Ciel had given up. Since he didn't even know what he'd done to have the dubious pleasure of Alois' attention, he refused to back down. He passed the smoking woman without further ado, determined to find Sebastian when Claude Faustus himself crossed the entrance hall.

… What had he wanted to do?

Claude stopped upon spotting him, the evident displeasure on his features evening out, then pushed up his glasses and extended a gloved hand. "Ciel Phantomhive, isn't it? You played at the Viscount's ball."

A gloved hand was okay to touch.

"I did," Ciel replied as he shook the man's hand. Fortunately, it was cool beneath the thin gloves, not clammy and warm like those meaty paws that had -

"You are a talented young violinist," Claude said, "and… may I remark that you have a pleasant appearance?"

For one second, Ciel wanted to bolt. Dread filled him, clotting inside his throat until he was sure he couldn't produce a sound anymore.

"Have you ever thought of modelling?"

What? That wasn't what he'd expected.

"Modelling," Claude repeated, as if having read the boy's thoughts. His stoic expression never changed, which didn't quite fit his friendly tone. "As in standing in front of a camera and wearing the things I, for example, have designed. I'm sure you'd do well."

Ciel cleared his throat, wondering whether this was a ploy. "If you wish to book me, please contact my aunt. I can't say that I'm not interested, though."

"That's all I needed." Something equivalent to a smile crept onto the man's lips. Then he changed the subject and the smile was wiped away just as fast. "I assume you want to see my cousin," Claude said. "He's in the ballroom, making sure that we don't damage his property. Would you come along?"

Ciel fisted the handle of his violin case. "Why not? Lead the way, please."

The designer brought him to a large room that looked nothing like what he'd seen at the Viscount's. For one, it was quite empty both in decoration and the amount of people. It also was painted in much darker colours. At the far end of the room, there were models posing under bright artificial lights while a man with silver hair took photos. Old furniture that perhaps had been taken from other rooms was used as additional decorum.

Ciel spotted Sebastian the moment he came into view. Standing next to the photographer, Sebastian smiled at him, and then motioned for him to wait a moment.

"Claude!"

Alois hadn't been lying. He _was_ there. And the shorts he wore made those from Saturday look decent. Ciel was confused at the fact that Alois, a maturing (at least he was supposed to do that) teenaged boy, wore women's shorts. His purple cardigan wasn't long enough to hide the silver gothic 'F' on the right side of his bottom - Ciel briefly wondered whether this was intended to be some show of possession. Alois' arms were wrapped around Claude's middle in no time while his head rested against the man's chest.

The designer did not move an inch.

Female models who were set up by make-up artists at the left side of the room exclaimed how cute this was while Alois lovingly cuddled his guardian, relishing their attention. After a very long time, Claude rested his hand on the boy's blond head.

That was all.

And somehow, it made Claude sympathetic to Ciel.

When the photographer released the pair he'd been taking pictures of, the designer waved them to him. Edgar Redmond, dressed in a crisp black suit, brushed back loose strands of hair and pushed his hands in the trousers' pockets. Next to him was a smaller blond adolescent (he must look younger than he actually was) wearing a beige suit.

Edgar approached the little group with self-confident, measured steps. His gaze brushed Ciel before it returned to him, laced with mild curiosity. "Aren't you the violinist from Saturday?" Edgar asked Ciel.

It was a beginning when people recognized him as 'the violinist', wasn't it? So Ciel nodded politely, shaking the proffered hand with hidden difficulty. It was almost annoying how his body would expect anyone to drag him away, but he was slowly convincing himself that there was no danger to be afraid of.

Not in here, at least.

"This is Maurice Cole, by the way," Edgar continued, motioning to the smaller blonde at his side.

Maurice, standing one step behind Edgar, smiled a dazzlingly and still managed to look hesitant. The older turned slightly and then decided to wrap an arm around Maurice's shoulder who redily came closer.

"Edgar, you might get a new partner for the next shooting," Claude said as the two adjusted their positions, perhaps still in the mood to pose for appearances. "It only depends on how his aunt will react to the news."

For a split moment, Maurice looked crestfallen.

Alois on the other hand, hanging at Claude's waist, seemed outraged. "What about me, Claude? Didn't you say you're going to let me model, too?"

"I did, but we also need a face like Ciel's." Claude pondered for a moment. "The expression behind his eyes goes well with my new collection."

(Edgar raised an eyebrow at this. Claude was keeping his eyes on his cousin.)

Alois tried it again. "But-"

"I never said that you were going to model for this season's collection."

Now, two blonds were glaring at Ciel. Alois was just so much more obvious about it. Edgar possessed a subtlety that made it harder to see.

And then his lips stretched into a charming smile. "I agree," he said. Bending down to Ciel (and half-releasing Maurice), he cocked his head to his side. Even though Edgar's red eyes spoke of friendliness, they were assessing him, calculating and trying to predict every next move. "You will certainly give the whole collection a different mood than the usual dull faces do. I can't wait to have a shooting with you."

Maurice looked as if his world had just crumbled into tiny little pieces at his feet.

And Ciel just wanted to go away, sensing that he was being targeted again.

"If you could please excuse us," somebody said from behind him, "I'd like to fetch my subject."

_Subject_? "Excuse me?" Ciel questioned, feeling his barely existent patience digesting itself.

"No need to," Sebastian said smoothly. "Please come with me." He turned to his cousin and hell turned into an ice desert. "Don't damage anything."

Claude sent him a disinterested glare. "Well then, Phantomhive," he said to Ciel, "it was a pleasure meeting you. I shall contact your aunt about the job, if you don't mind."

"I don't mind at all," Ciel said.

"But _Claude_! I also want to model for you!" Alois had let go off the older male. Claude seemed like an unoccupied piece of furniture without Alois' body pressing against him.

"Next year's summer collection. Be quiet now."

Alois grinned widely and shut up.

"What is wrong with him?" Ciel asked once he and Sebastian were in the safety of the cream-coloured saloon.

"I don't know much about him," Sebastian said. "But he annoys Claude, so I don't mind."

Ciel frowned. If that wasn't childish… He rosined the violin bow in silence, wondering how Alois could become like that. It occurred to him that the boy had been glaring at him even more in Claude's presence.

"Could it be that he's terribly jealous over Claude?" he asked.

"He's completely focussed on him," Sebastian answered. "And anyone who gets more attention than him is an enemy."

Well… "That explains a lot," Ciel muttered as he began a new tune. "I wonder why?"

Sebastian started applying the colours to the canvas. "Who knows? Though I wouldn't try wracking my brain over this." A pause. "Or is he bothering you?"

Why would he care? Ciel narrowed his eyes at him. "I think he bothers a lot of people."

Sebastian chuckled.

"How come they're in your house, though? I thought there are a lot of… negative feelings in your family. Especially between the inner and outer circles."

The artist looked at the boy as if trying to tell him that this was none of his business. Ciel couldn't help but admit that it really wasn't. Yet, he was curious. He'd seen Claude talk to his cousin at the party; he'd seen them leave the Viscount's home with their friends. Together. And now he'd seen how they behaved in semi-private.

Sebastian paused, and then carefully chose his words. "…The Michaelis family is a… _special_ family. The rivalries between the circles still exist, but we are also publicly known. We do have an image to maintain; my father and his sisters did the same. As for Claude being in this house" – here, he didn't seem happy about the fact at all – "I'm not the family head. I've been disinherited. Therefore, Claude has a higher rank than I do, even if he's part of the outer circle. This has been the family head's residence for the last two hundred years and he, as my cousin, has the right to invite himself whenever he wants to, seeing that the latest family head doesn't live here anymore. I, as the _former_ heir, can't deny him." He shrugged. "I'd love to, though."

Ciel was baffled. Didn't Sebastian mind telling him that? Ciel had done research on him, maybe he felt the need to complete the picture of his family. However, hearing all that did have an effect on him: He almost sympathized. He also was able to relax even better. This man didn't seem like someone who'd hurt him, at least not in the near future. Of all the people who'd say this, Ciel would know best. "What about the new heir? Where's he?"

"Built himself a new residence some hundred kilometres from here. I bought the mansion from him since he planned to have it destroyed."

The boy nodded carefully, digesting the words. He bit his lower lip while thinking and also noticed that Sebastian's gaze didn't linger on his lips when he did it. It was the small things that reassured him of the man's disinterest in harming him. Feeling generous, Ciel gave him a minuscule smile. "Your story is safe with me."

Sebastian returned the sentiment. "I didn't expect anything else."

There was a knock on the door. The two males in the room exchanged a look (and Ciel was rather surprised that their eyes met at the very same moment) before Edgar and Maurice came into the room.

"We're on a break," Edgar said, "do you mind if we stay here? I've always been interested in seeing an artist at work."

Sebastian frowned in scepticism, but let them come in. Ciel wondered what he was thinking as it didn't seem to be anything positive. Edgar came to a short halt behind the raven-haired male and looked over his shoulder, comparing the unfinished painting to the real Ciel slouching on the sofa.

"I thought," Ciel drawled, setting the violin down, "that you don't let people see your unfinished work."

"Only the one upstairs," Sebastian said.

Edgar went to sit in the only armchair in the room. Maurice had no choice but to stand next to the sitting model, one arm stretched over the backrest. Crossing his legs, Edgar winked at Ciel. "Aren't you a cutie pie," he murmured as if in thought. "Isn't he pretty, Maurice?"

The younger blond's adam's apple bobbed despite the friendly expression. "Yes."

"The two of you are also very handsome," Sebastian said.

Ciel almost rolled his eyes. What exactly was Sebastian hoping to accomplish by that?

"Why, thank you," Edgar said, smiling elegantly.

"I'd love to draw you," Sebastian continued. Ciel secretly wondered whether this was _meant_ to sound as if he was flirting with the blonds.

"Like your French girls?" Maurice asked mischievously as Edgar's smile grew.

Sebastian looked up from the canvas, smirking. "Like that, only more masculine."

"I'll take you up on the offer," Edgar said. It seemed as if he just noticed that Maurice was standing, for he looked around without moving his head too much as if searching for another chair. Then he uncrossed his legs and patted his lap, inviting – or rather telling - the other to sit there. Maurice, blushing furiously, did as he was told. "It will be different from a regular shooting and I certainly need a change from staring at a camera all the time."

"Whenever you're ready," Sebastian said, looking at Ciel over the canvas now. For a short moment, their gazes locked before Sebastian concentrated on his work again. As he spoke to the two blonds, Ciel understood what he was doing: He was focussing their attention on himself rather than letting them talk to Ciel. He wouldn't admit it, but it was rather welcome. As long as they were talking to Sebastian, they couldn't bother Ciel which they probably had intended to do, considering how they had reacted to Claude's announcement earlier.

A phone rang, interrupting the conversation between artist and model. Resting an arm on Maurice's lap, Edgar reached into his own pocket and pulled out his phone. While he did this with an elegant nonchalance, Maurice's eyes were glued on the carpet in front of him and red stained his cheeks. But he smiled faintly.

Edgar's brother was on the other line. The model listened to what was said, barely talking himself, though Ciel wondered whether it was possible to say something once the Viscount was in his element.

"What did he want?" Maurice asked when Edgar hung up.

"He wanted me to come over one of these days before I go to Milan." He pushed a finger into Maurice's side, making the other squirm slightly. "Off with you, dear, we need to go back to Claude. When I return from Milan, you'll have to draw us, Sebastian."

The artist nodded. "It will be a pleasure."

As Edgar passed Ciel, he ruffled the boy's hair. "I'd say that I love to have a picture with you, but we're going to have that shooting together, so it'll have to do." Ciel glared at him, detesting the touch, and he laughed pleasantly. "See you, cutie pie."

Maurice pursed his lips and said nothing.

When the door closed, Ciel snorted softly. "'I'd love to draw you'? Do you always flirt like that?"

"I _was_ trying to prevent a fight," Sebastian said. "Don't forget that Edgar is the Viscount's beloved brother. If he dislikes you, it will only take a word and you're short of a benefactor. That would be very sad as I would love to see you make yourself known."

"Are you implying he'd dislike me easily?"

Sebastian shrugged. "You aren't looking up to him as you should in his opinion, since you're younger. If he notices this, he won't like you. Edgar loves to classify and rank people. If you aren't the best, you're not worthy of his or his brother's attention."

Now, if that didn't sound like a nice guy…

Ciel huffed and brought the bow to his violin.

Then he started playing, and Sebastian seemed content with the absence of spoken words.

**OOO**

Anne, sitting at the head of the table, smiled at her nephew.

Ciel had been enduring that smile for what felt like hours (it had been thirty minutes, but it wasn't as if he'd been checking the time). Didn't that eventually hurt? He wouldn't admit it, but it started to concern and annoy him at the same time. "Is there something you would like to tell me?" he asked.

"My nephew is going to model for Claude Faustus." Anne grinned widely. "And he's getting along swimmingly with Sebastian. I'm so happy."

When Ciel had left the Michaelis estate half an hour ago, Claude and his team had still been around, gathering their things while the models were out the door already. When had Claude had the time to contact Anne, not to mention find out her number?

"You know," Anne said at the moment, "Claude already expressed his interest in you at the ball. I gave him my number, but he said he'd ask you first. I knew that he was going to have a shooting at his cousin's this week, so I arranged the portrait painting for the same week."

"That," Ciel began slowly, "doesn't sit well with me. I think I feel used."

She waved her hand. "But you're going to be a model for a day."

The boy frowned and stabbed his dinner with his fork.

"And how is working with Sebastian, by the way? Did you get a peek at the work in progress?"

"It's alright and no."

"You know, I do have the feeling that you are getting along well. You aren't tense at all." She cocked her head to the side, her smile still painfully present.

Ciel just stared her down for a moment, before deciding to change the subject. Aunt Anne wouldn't leave him alone if she found out that he didn't mind being around Sebastian. The man wasn't dangerous and had shown no indication of perverse desire for him. If there was anything that he should ponder over, it was the interest that Sebastian openly showed but rarely expressed. It made Ciel suspicious, but that was it. He could tell that Sebastian wasn't one of _that_ kind, even though it still had Ciel on guard just in case.

… In the end, Ciel just didn't know what to think of Sebastian. But there was a high chance that he'd be safe from Sebastian's groping hands, and that was very welcome.

He was no toy.

**OOO**

After two more days of excessive violin playing, bantering and Sebastian's newfound habit of teasing Ciel (which had the boy sputtering and very inclined to throw something at the widely grinning artist), the painting was finished.

"I took certain… liberties," Sebastian said, "I hope you don't mind."

"It depends," Ciel answered carefully as he approached the canvas. "Will you put those liberties on the bill?"

The artist laughed. "No, but I had to add in my own style. People should recognize this as a painting from me, you know?"

Turning to the canvas, Ciel snorted softly. This must be some strange kind of vanity; the boy was of the opinion that a simple signature would tell onlookers who the artist was. "I hope you are aware that this will hang somewhere in my room, so not many people are going to see –"

Fire.

Had Ciel still held his violin, it would have dropped to the floor. He felt Sebastian's scrutinizing gaze on him as he stared at the painting. There he was, slouching on the couch in his burgundy-coloured outfit, his expression distant and strangely serene as he kept his eyes on the violin's strings. The music sheets from 'The Devil's Trill' were partially lying where he'd put them at the first day, but some of them were sailing down to the floor while burning to ashes. The fire came from the right part of the painting where the sheet music was; it licked at the cream-coloured tapestry in the background, it went for the chessboard lying at the floor.

This was an amazing work of art.

But Ciel found himself horrified by the vividly painted flames that were close to his painted replica.

"It's called 'Escape'." Sebastian's voice sounded as if it were far away, yet Ciel knew that there was only two feet between them.

"Ironic," Ciel said. His vision was swimming as he consciously tried to calm himself down. It was just a painting. Just a painting. There would _not_ be a panic attack. But the tell-tale tightening in his chest seemed adamant on proving him wrong.

"You think so?" There was a short moment in which Ciel thought Sebastian said something more. He didn't hear it properly, though, too caught up in pressing resurfacing memories back into the pond of his mind. What the man said afterwards was heard, though: "How do you like the fire?"

So it was like _that_. Ciel would have laughed, but right now he felt the urge to either vomit or sit down. He almost opted for the former, just out of spite, and he hoped the carpet beneath him had been expensive. But then his knees buckled dangerously and he sat down with the back to the room behind him, trying to focus on his breathing and tried to think rationally. Sometimes it helped. He knew how his head worked, and on a few lucky occasions he was able to suppress an attack before it could overwhelm him.

He also knew that the room behind him wasn't burning, but it didn't matter if there was only fire in the onslaught of memories.

"Are you alright?" Sebastian asked from somewhere above.

"Shut up!" Ciel closed his eyes, pressed the palm of his hands against the eye patch and the closed eyelid and took deep breaths. His heart was beating way too fast, and fear closed its claws around his throat. "You know about my past! That's why you did this!" He didn't notice Sebastian sitting down next to him. A hand descended to Ciel's shoulder, and, embarrassingly, he couldn't hold back the scream. Instead of removing the offending limb, Sebastian only squeezed the boy's shoulder gently, reassuringly, which at least stopped all the attempts to get away from the touch. Ciel was just too dumbfounded.

"I draw what I see," Sebastian calmly said after nothing but harsh breathing had filled the room for a while. Ciel tried to control it. "And what I see is a boy haunted by his own past."

Feeling uncomfortable with the duration of the touch, Ciel slapped the man's hand away. "Who are you to make assumptions? You don't know me." The pressure in his head was clearing, his thoughts were less frantic, but he couldn't bring himself to look at the cream-coloured saloon in front of him. He was just glad that his asthma hadn't caught up with him, lest they'd have had a whole bunch of new problems.

"But I would love to get to know you," Sebastian said next to him. He sounded so sincere that Ciel didn't know how to react.

So he didn't say anything.

The artist didn't seem bothered by the lack of a response. From the corners of his vision, Ciel saw how he got up, and he slowly lifted his gaze to see an unblemished room in front of him. His hands were still shaking and his heart wouldn't calm down yet.

But there was nothing to be afraid of.

"I guess you don't want it, then," Sebastian said. "That's okay, we can always make a new one."

Realizing that he was sitting on the floor like some ill-mannered child, Ciel quickly got up, refusing to look at the painting. He wasn't calm enough yet, but the initial shock was wearing off faster than expected. "It's mine," he said. "I decide what will be done with it."

Sebastian, who had outstretched his arms to take the canvas, frowned. "You want it shredded?"

"I want it in my _room_." Ciel went over to the couch to pack his things. "As soon as it is framed, I will pick it up personally."

Sebastian stared. "Somehow, I did not expect that after your reaction."

"Funny how you can say that when you already knew that I'm not very fond of fire." Ciel shouldered his bag. But he didn't want the painting because he liked it (even though it was too beautiful), he felt that Sebastian was right in his assumption that Ciel was haunted by his own past. Aunt Anne always complained about him not thinking of the future – or the present, for that matter - and wouldn't he be working to get better if he took the picture with him and try not to panic while looking at it? It made sense somewhere in his head.

He went to the main door, only turning to see Sebastian coming down the stairs as well. The artist seemed entertained, as if Ciel had just done something humorous. Not that the boy knew anything about it.

"When will it be done?" Ciel let the man open the door for him. The cold air blew into the house and even though Sebastian was only wearing a thin pullover, he didn't show any signs of feeling the cold.

"You can pick it up next week," Sebastian answered. "Shall I inform your aunt when you can come?"

"No." Ciel would not have his whole life arranged by his aunt. It was all right for her to schedule his appointments, but anything beyond that was just humiliating in his opinion. No, he would finish this job on his own, and then hang it up somewhere in his room with Bard. Because he didn't know how to do that. "Call me. Phone, please."

The artist seemed surprised but gave him his phone nevertheless. Ciel added his number to Sebastian's contacts and gave it back to him, fighting the urge to blush. He wasn't a _girl_, dammit.

"Expect my call soon, then." For some reason unknown to Ciel, the artist was smiling again as if something beneficial to him had happened.

Then Bard came to pick him up and Ciel couldn't dwell on the matter anymore. He got into the car without saying goodbye.

Sebastian didn't say anything, either.

* * *

_And the fourth chapter. I hope you enjoyed it! And yeah, here we see Maurice's nice side. ( I do like to think that he's some kind of an Edgar fanboy even in the manga, but he's probably juist the guy's fag for the status' sake.)_

_Don't forget the feedback, dears! =D_

_See you in the next chapter._


	5. The Boy and The Demon V

**Disclaimer:** Nope, still not mine.

**Chapter 5**

"So, is he dead yet?"

Sebastian rolled his eyes. "Give me a good reason as to why he should be."

Undertaker nibbled on a biscuit. "Just asking."

"It's only been five days," Gregory pointed out as he was sketching nightmare versions of Undertaker and Sebastian. While he had great talent, Sebastian didn't like seeing himself as a demon when they talked about him taking other people's life essence (as Undertaker loved to call it). "Do you honestly think he's _that_ fast?"

"Five days?" Undertaker repeated. "Then the seed has been planted. I say he's as good as dead." He thought about it. "He'd make a pretty corpse."

"I wouldn't know," Gregory said monotonously as he looked up from his sketches. "Haven't seen him yet."

"He _will_ come back, won't he, Sebastian?"

The artist shrugged. "I don't know why I should tell you anything. You will twist my words around until I become some kind of supernatural murderer."

"You made him sulk," Gregory said slowly.

"Maybe," Undertaker giggled.

Sebastian refused the urge to throw a biscuit at him. Then he spotted the newspaper – the only one that Undertaker read (it came out every week and summarized the occurred events well, which was perfect for lazy people like him) - by the coffee table's corner. A certain article caught the artist's eye: '_William T. Michaelis on business management and family'_

Sebastian frowned, picking up the paper and skimming over the article. Whenever he read his cousin's name it reminded him of how he could have been in his place had he just been a little bit more like his father had wanted him to be. But he had wished to study art so badly, and managing such a large business while drawing had never been an option. "Why is he talking about family? Has Claude been telling the truth again?"

"I think so," Undertaker answered, lips curling in amusement. "But I didn't follow the news. And I don't listen to gossip."

Gregory paused, looking up from his sketches. Sebastian caught a glimpse of fangs on his scribbled replica. "You don't?"

Undertaker waved a hand to silence his young friend. "You never told us whether he'll come back or not."

"He will," Sebastian anwered, "he still has a painting to fetch. And there is one that I want to show him, too."

Undertaker snapped his fingers, calling for his visitors' attention. "Are you going to do that thing again that you did with your second muse?"

Sebastian frowned at him. Undertaker always claimed to have a horrible memory, but he remembered every muse well enough. He knew their names, how old they were when Sebastian found them, how old they were when they stopped being muses (either because they'd died or – as only twice had been the case – ended the whole ordeal with much drama and/or hatred), and how many pictures Sebastian had drawn in that time.

"You know," Undertaker continued, "show him his portrait that you drew from memory, tell him how much he inspired you, lull him into false security, kiss-"

Sebastian snorted, trying to hide the repulsion he momentarily felt. "I never kissed Claude and I don't plan on doing it. Same goes for the boy."

"Claude?" Gregory reached for the red colour pencil and continued with his sketch. "_Claude_ has been one of your muses?" When he received no negative response, he went on: "That explains a lot, family issues aside." Even though he must be astonished, his voice was still flat.

"Pray tell, what does it explain?" Sebastian asked dryly. He couldn't deny that he was touchy about the whole 'Claude was my muse' subject. It was embarrassing, which perhaps was the reason why Undertaker would never forget that particular phase.

But Claude _had_ been a cute kid…

Gregory carefully shook his head. "You don't want to know."

And he was right, Sebastian thought. Maybe it was better not to know.

"How come he's still alive, though?"

Sebastian glanced at him. He saw that his sketch had blood red eyes now. "You don't want to know."

Gregory nodded in understanding, perhaps figuring that he indeed wasn't interested in an answer. Both of them respectfully kept their thoughts to themselves.

"The boy's coming over today," Sebastian finally said to get away from talking about Claude. There was nothing he'd love more than erasing that memory, but with Undertaker around, he knew it would come up in the next two years again. Maybe even earlier. "I think I should go."

"Do that, then," Undertaker said as his friend got up. "And bring the boy with you one of these days. You know how much I enjoy visitors."

"Alive, though," Gregory added blandly, and the photographer started giggling hysterically.

Holding his stomach, Undertaker didn't even try to calm down. "Isn't he _hilarious_? He should be a stand-up comedian!"

Sebastian looked at the emotionless young man and wasn't of the same opinion. "Absolutely," he said, his voice dripping with irony as he wondered whether he should feel offended or not.

**OOO**

When he arrived at his front door, Ciel was sitting on the stairs that led to the entrance observing his fingernails. How long had he been waiting? He took out his keys, and their jingling made the boy look up.

"Have you been waiting for a long time?" he asked the boy as he unlocked the door.

"Not at all," Ciel answered slowly. "In fact, I would have called you just now."

"Wouldn't that imply that you've been waiting rather long?"

"No." The boy took off his shoes. "I just didn't feel like sitting here longer than five minutes."

Sebastian chuckled. "I still apologize for my delay."

"Apology accepted." Ciel straightened again. "Where is it?"

"In my study," the artist replied, showing him the way.

When they entered, Ciel took in the room, much like he'd done the last time he'd been around. Then he pointed at the covered canvas. "Is it the same from last week?"

"Yes," Sebastian answered. "It's not quite finished yet, since I had a priority."

There was a moment of silence in which Ciel just stared at the white linen that hid the painting from his eyes. "I'd… like to see it when it's finished," he said carefully.

A smile was pulling at Sebastian's lips. This was going well. "But of course." He went to retrieve the framed painting of Ciel. "You can always pass by and see whether I'm done."

"That," Ciel said dryly, "won't be the case."

"Oh?" Sebastian smirked now. "You are on the painting, you know."

"I am?" The boy frowned then looked at the canvas again. "Call me when you're done, then." He said it with more confidence than before, perhaps feeling that he didn't need permission from Sebastian to see his own painted self.

The artist bowed and set 'Escape' down. He noticed how Ciel's gaze only brushed it before returning to him again.

To distract the boy from his dislike of flames, Sebastian started talking again: "Your chauffeur isn't there."

"He'll be back soon. There's something he has to do for my aunt."

The boy would stay for a bit, Sebastian decided and hoped that the chauffeur wasn't already on his way back.

"Care for a cup of tea?"

**OOO**

Ciel was wonderful company.

With their cups in their hands, they wandered the mansion's hallways as the boy had expressed his interest in a few paintings. Of course, he hadn't said that he wanted to see them, but when Sebastian had suggested walking around instead of sitting down with their tea, Ciel had quickly agreed. The young musician didn't talk about himself, and when Sebastian once asked about his life, he became very quiet and sceptic. The artist figured that it might take some time for the boy to open up. Compared to how he'd been only a week ago, they made great progress. So Sebastian talked about himself or his art, and Ciel seemed to be content with that. He listened, asked questions sometimes and showed that he was interested, which was good, Sebastian assumed.

At one point, they went to the music room. Ciel immediately went over to the concert piano, looking at Sebastian as if asking for permission. The artist took his empty cup and smiled at him.

It turned out that Ciel knew how to play piano. The melody he played was sweet and soft, maybe his own composition, and Sebastian memorized how the boy was sitting at the piano, they way in which he looked at the keys in concentration, not daring to avert his eyes. Behind him was the beautiful garden.

It didn't take long for Sebastian to get something to draw on; he had a small sketch book and a pencil in almost every room of the house. Undertaker tended to laugh at him whenever he found another sketch book in a room, but Sebastian firmly believed that they could come in very handy as long as it didn't have anything to do with Grell trying to force him into drawing a portrait.

Ciel looked up from the keys for what must be the first time when Sebastian stepped over the cups he'd placed on the floor. The melody went on, and he seemed absolutely unimpressed. "My, what have I gotten myself into here?"

"Oh, nothing." Sebastian brought the pencil to the paper, drawing the boy's outline in quick but precise strokes.

"I hardly believe that."

"Well, you are very inspiring, if you don't mind me saying."

Ciel cocked an eyebrow. "I'm not going to wear any togas like some Ancient Greek inspiration goddess."

"A toga, dear Ciel, was what the Ancient Romans wore." Sebastian grinned. "You are also implying that you wouldn't mind becoming my muse."

"And you, sir, are hard of hearing for I never even implicitly mentioned such thing." The boy was concentrating on ebony and ivory again, making it easier for Sebastian to sketch his profile. "Do you always do that with people who visit you?"

"No, just the special ones," Sebastian replied.

There was a wrong chord in response, and Ciel's mouth was set in a firm line.

Then he blushed, got up, as if exasperated, but Sebastian motioned for him to sit down again. After a staring match, the boy did so, playing random little melodies with his right hand until Sebastian finished his sketch. What he found the most beautiful about the sketch was the small smile on the boy's lips that he had eternalised, that moment of contentedness and serenity while he'd been playing the original piece. It was almost as if he'd been lost in his own thoughts and memories.

Ciel got up to have a closer look at the violins.

Two days later, the doorbell rang. Sebastian was surprised to see the boy, yet very satisfied with the progress they were making. The boy wanted to know about the current state of the painting, and while Sebastian hadn't finished it yet, he offered tea and conversation.

Ciel narrowed his eyes at the artist and accepted.

Just like he did the next day -

And the next day…

**OOO**

_A pale boy is standing in front of a black background. He is an interesting specimen, for his hair – what can be seen of it - has this strange blue-greyish colour and his eyes, regarding the onlooker almost arrogantly, are bicoloured. While the left eye reminds of the depths of the ocean, the right eye glows violet._

_The boy is presumably wearing no clothes at all. What can be seen of him doesn't go further than the first peek of a hipbone. His arms are slightly extended to the sides, bent at the elbows. _

_And then there are all these _hands_._

_All of them are clad in black leather, yet different in form and size. One of them, resting on the boy's shoulder, has long, black nails, which the glove surrounds like a second skin. Another one, with long, elegant fingers, is drawing a trail of blood over the boy's collarbone. While many hands are on the boy already, many _more_ reach out for him, wanting to touch his hair, his face; one of them has its fingers dangerously close to the violet eye, another is brushing over the boy's cheek._

_One of them is holding the boy's own hand._

_And if one looks very closely, they can see the additional pair of hands, not necessarily of the same creature, trying to pull the hand away. The creature holding the boy by his hand has presumably been the first around while the others must have followed and are now about to fight for the child._

_There is a trail of a dark substance running down the child's right cheek._

_And while he stares back at whoever lays eyes on him, the hands roam over porcelain skin, trying to find a perfect spot to start ripping him into shreds._

**OOO**

It was a frosty Sunday when Sebastian finished his masterpiece. He grinned widely at the result, feeling the usual spark of success in his chest.

"Done," he said and craned his head to show his face of accomplishment.

Ciel, bored, turned his head to him. "Finally," he drawled. "That one took much longer than the week you promised."

"I also have other things to do. Artists don't only stand around all day and draw, you know?"

"That's exactly what you've been doing whenever I visited."

"That's because I'm inspired."

The boy got up from the windowsill he'd been sitting on, his visible eye sparkling with interest while he kept his steps measured. If he was trying to show no excitement, Sebastian had to admit that he was pretty good at it. But he'd learned to read the boy's eye(s) and was getting better at it.

Ciel rounded the canvas and froze.

Sebastian had expected that.

The next thing, however, not.

"You drew a star into my eye?"

"It's a pentagram."

"I've seen many assumptions on what's beneath the patch, but I didn't guess that you're after that secret, too, Sebastian."

"I'm not," Sebastian answered, mentally adding 'At least not yet'.

Ciel narrowed his eyes at him, but he didn't do anything else. They were still standing quite close to each other, and he didn't move away like he usually did when he became sceptic. "All the people are," he said. Then he took in Sebastian's appearance and pointed to his own forehead. Sebastian wiped at his, and his hand came back with a black smear.

How did that always happen?

"What's it called?" Ciel asked.

Sebastian noticed that he'd forgotten his signature in the corner and quickly scribbled it down. "'The boy and the demon'", he replied.

"If I'm the boy," Ciel began, "which demon are we talking about?"

Sebastian pointed at the hand that held the boy's.

"Is that the demon of my past?" The question sounded almost as if it was mocking him. Sebastian recalled what he'd told the boy two weeks ago when the commission had been finished.

"This is but the past," he answered, quickly coming to the realization that it was true.

"I'm the boy," Ciel said, pointing at his painted self, "this is the demon," Sebastian didn't miss how Ciel looked at his paint stained fingers, "and what about the rest?"

"Oh, that…" The artist smiled. "It's everybody else."

* * *

**_End _**

_of_

_ Act I - The Boy and The Demon_

* * *

**_IMPORTANT NOTICE:_**

_One act down, four more to go! Between two acts will always be an **interlude** to fleshen out the plot a bit more._

_This act's interlude will come out** this Saturday**._

_But **don't forget to also review this chapter**, dears! =D _


	6. Interlude I: Vocalise

**A/N:** So this is the first interlude. Since it's an interlude and not a chapter, it's not in Sebastian's or Ciel's POV. Maurice is the one whose eyes we're looking through for this one. Because Maurice hears and sees things that Sebastian and Ciel don't. I hope not too many of you hate Maurice, but you might want to read the interlude anyway.

Also, **thank your for your reviews!** Keep them coming, they keep me motivated =)

To accompany this little chapter, and to fit it better into the musical (and overall artistical) theme of Crescendo, every interlude will have a bit of background music to go with. For this chapter, I have chosen Rachmaninov's Vocalise, the piano version. Here's the video on youtube: /watch?v=R5IiC1kAdzM

**Interlude - Vocalise**

When Edgar came from the baggage claim, Maurice couldn't hide his surprise at the bags under the beauty's eyes, the slightly tousled hair and the slouch in his steps. There was no way he could blame it on jetlag or a long flight; a flight to Italy didn't take that long and Edgar even looked great after a day-long journey. His appearance was impeccable and his good mood usually out of place whenever they awoke in Tokyo or New York; Maurice, on the other hand looked always dishevelled on those mornings. He couldn't even so much as handle a two-hour flight without getting stupidly tired. Things were always like this with them: Edgar, the perfect man 24/7, and Maurice with his mood swings after flights, usually yawning during the first two days, always tagging along behind his friend.

_This_ was not right.

Trying not to express his thoughts, Maurice waved as Edgar looked up, undoubtedly searching for his brother. The older man gave him a blank look before approaching him, a smile slowly forming on his tired face. "Hello, dear."

"Good to see you again." Without warning, Maurice wrapped his arms around the other man's neck. His back arched slightly, his body searched for contact, but Maurice told himself not to be greedy. Edgar's hands rested lightly on his back, and as he bent down slightly, Maurice couldn't help but relish the wonderful scent and carefully smiled to himself. Edgar might look worn down, but he still smelled amazing. "Aleister couldn't come, so I offered to pick you up."

Edgar's body stiffened at the mention of his brother, but Maurice acted as if he hadn't noticed as he let go.

"Well, then I should thank you for coming to get me."

Maurice took the trolley from Edgar's hand and felt a warm arm around his shoulders as they walked. Trying very hard to hide the grin that would split his entire face in two, Maurice told him what had happened in the last week when Edgar asked. He carefully left out the parts in which Claude had talked about the upcoming shooting with Ciel Phantomhive, though. He did not like that kid.

Edgar only brushed his free hand through his hair and nodded.

"How come you look so… tired?" Maurice asked as they arrived by the car. He hoisted the trolley into the trunk and quickly got in the car.

"I'm okay. It was just…" And here, Edgar stopped for a moment, choosing to look out of the window as they left the airport. "… strenuous," he finished.

Maurice nodded empathetically, wondering what he could do. Maybe… "You know, Aleister asked whether you'll visit again. Whenever your schedule allows you to."

"I don't have any time at all," Edgar said quickly. Then he shook his head carefully and must have caught a glimpse of himself in the side mirrors, for he groaned quietly (he usually didn't do that). "I look terrible."

"You're still handsome," Maurice said brightly, taking note of the tenseness in his friend again. "But you might need some sleep. Why don't you go to bed when you get home?"

"There's too much to do," Edgar replied.

The sound of a mobile phone broke the silence. Edgar didn't move to answer it, he just sat there, his legs crossed, his fingers combing through his hair carefully, while watching the cars in front of them as if nothing was wrong.

"Your phone," Maurice said after a moment.

"Surely it's nothing important."

"What if it's Claude?"

Edgar raised an eyebrow at him. "Claude doesn't _do_ phone calls."

The ringing stopped. There was a pause in which Edgar checked who had called. "Or he just started doing them."

While he called back, Maurice drove in silence, letting his friend solve the problem. He wondered what was wrong; Edgar had never been so _odd_. Chances were high that it had something to do with Aleister, directly or indirectly. Since their last meeting, Edgar had been… weird sometimes. It hadn't been anything obvious at the beginning: A distracted air around him once in a while, nothing more. Over the course of a week, it had turned into irritation, silence and odd looks thrown at some of the models, but especially at Claude's ward. Maurice didn't understand what could possibly be so special about _that_ one, but since Alois hated Edgar, he didn't need to fear for anything. It would be pathetic to feel threatened by a fourteen-year-old, promiscuous _boy_. He didn't need to, for the fact that Edgar showed this side only in front of him reassured Maurice greatly, even though he tried his best to understand it. It weighed down on him a little bit, but he would try to find out what was wrong, so that the problem would be out of the world soon. Maybe it was naïve to think that he could solve Edgar's problems alone, yet he still liked to tell himself that he could.

The older model ended the call, sighed and put his phone back in his pocket. The upbeat act had ended, and the elegant smile was wiped off of his face in less than a second, showing nothing but indifference as he leaned back in the passenger's seat and switched on the radio.

"There's something you aren't telling me," Maurice finally declared.

Edgar frowned slightly. "You think so?"

"We're friends, aren't we?" Well, admitting that didn't sit too well with him. "Almost like brothers. You've been acting strange lately, and I'd like to know what's wrong. Has it got something to do with Aleister? Did you-"

"Maurice." Edgar exhaled carefully, barely turning his head to the younger male. "There is nothing wrong. I'm just tired since I didn't get more than four hours of sleep in the last few nights."

"And what about the week before that?" For once, Maurice didn't feel like dropping the matter. Had Edgar been any other person, he'd have let go rather quickly, unless of course listening and insisting would somehow be of great benefit to him. But since this was Edgar, he cared. It could be that getting closer to him was an ulterior motive for his actions. However, Maurice was of the opinion that he could safely claim that this was any love-smitten person's intention. They usually just didn't perceive it as such. "I think," he continued, hoping that he had indeed read the signs correctly, no matter how strange Edgar was this time, "that you did fight with Aleister, and probably lost sleep over that."

At this, the older male seemed slightly annoyed. "Do I look like somebody who cares enough to lose his sleep over a fight?" He sighed as if getting angry, but the way his eyebrows drew together did not speak of anger at all. Maurice checked several times to make sure that he really had never seen that expression on Edgar.

Now, at least, he did.

"It wasn't a fight." Pause. "It was so much more. You shouldn't worry about it, Maurice."

But that was exactly what the younger blond was doing now. It took some effort to disturb Edgar and even _more_ to have him outwardly show it.

Maurice didn't pester him further. It would be counterproductive. Not beneficial at all.

When they stopped by the apartment house – Edgar wouldn't buy himself his own house, claiming that as a model he wouldn't see much of it anyway, and had decided to buy one of the most expensive flats that London city had to offer - Maurice got the trolley from the car's trunk and waited patiently for Edgar to saunter to the door, smiling as he noticed how that natural posture was coming back.

Then his phone rang.

With an annoyed air surrounding him, Edgar reached for the offending piece of technology. "Why do people keep calling me?"

"You are a model," Maurice pointed out dryly. That was why he had two phones. One day, his friend would also realize that it wasn't a bad idea to do the same. But since it had been Maurice's suggestion and not his own, Edgar preferred staying with one phone. "Maybe it's just Gregory."

"Gregory doesn't _do_ calls," Edgar said, "and I'm very sure about _that_ one."

He checked the display and blanched.

Then he put the ringing phone back into his pocket.

"Who was it?" Maurice asked as the door was opened, having the feeling that the question was unnecessary; it was Aleister.

They took the elevator since the flat was in the last storey. Edgar grimaced at his tired features in the mirrors that surrounded them. The phone finally stopped ringing.

"Nobody important."

The next day, Edgar purchased a new phone. Maurice, lying on one of the snow white chaise lounges, watched him as he sat in the modern style armchair, transferring his contacts from one phone to the new one. The old phone rang again and Edgar dropped it, barely sneering at the object. "I think," he said, "that I should change this number."

The phone's display read 'Aleister'.

* * *

_fin_.

* * *

_So, I hope you enjoyed it! Don't forget the reviews, dears!_

_Act II will continue with Sebastian and Ciel again. It's only the interludes that have other characters to fleshen out the overall fic/plot. Act II will be called 'Encounter'._

_See you there!_


	7. Act II: Encounter

**A/N:** And a new act begins! Happy 4th July! =D

'Warnings': We find out who Sebastian's other still living muse is...? XD In other words: elaborate 'flashback'.

**Disclaimer**: Nope, Kuro's not mine.

* * *

_**ACT II**_

_Encounter_

_For violin and piano_

* * *

**Chapter 6**

_The other male has white hair._

_The first time Sebastian sees him, it's only the back that he sees, clad in a white long-sleeved shirt. White strands are brushing against the nape of his neck, his fingers are long and pale, which is even further accentuated by the sun shining down on unblemished porcelain and the mass of people with bronzed skin everywhere._

_He turns around. Maybe he's noticed that somebody is looking at him, but his features soften as he spots Sebastian._

_He smiles._

_They get to know each other rather quickly. The male's name is Ash, and they're studying at the same university ("Yes", one of them says, "I've seen you around."). Both are studying art, but while Sebastian prefers traditional painting, Ash loves sculpting. They meet in cafés, in the university's hallways, in clubs where neither of them ever dances. Sebastian quickly tunes his senses after Ash, how he gestures with his hands (eloquent, yet restrained movements), how he usually sits (he slightly sinks into his seat, usually rests the ankle of one leg on the knee of the other), how he smiles (slowly; each smile is a development, not a reaction), what he smells like (Sebastian knows that cologne), and so much more._

_Soon Sebastian gets to hear secrets._

_On one of many evenings, Sebastian draws him. They are in his (really) small flat and Sebastian has his troubles getting used to it. He's grown up in big rooms and wide corridors and now he quickly has to learn how to handle smaller amounts of money. Not that he's ever cared about learning it. _

_Ash says he likes how cosy the flat is, and Sebastian laughs while charcoal flies over paper. They're sitting on the sofa, facing each other, socked feet almost touching. While he's being drawn, Ash talks, and he talks a lot for someone who appears so cold and quiet. Sebastian notices that even though they're only drinking water, there is no order to his speech sometimes, there are moments in which he talks about something completely other, and sometimes he changes the subject and never goes back to the unfinished one. He leaves many trails and never reaches a goal._

_Sebastian listens, but is too focussed on his portrait to care. All he knows is that he should transform this young man's voice into a painting._

_And he does._

_It's strange that the painting turns out darker than expected, but Ash loves it._

"_Visit me," he says one day, and Sebastian follows him to a small house thirty kilometres away from university. There, Ash carves Sebastian out of wood while Sebastian paints the process. It takes them the whole weekend, from morning to morning to the next morning, because they're a little bit too perfectionistic and way too driven to know when to stop._

_They do it again at the end of the autumn term when they have more time at hand to stay up with less hours of sleep. Sebastian almost lives in Ash's house. He figures it's better there, anyway._

_Ash has a sister, Angela. Fraternal twins; she studies music not very far away. According to her brother, she plays the clarinet extraordinarily, as well as the cello. When Sebastian hears her practising, he thinks that her brother's praise was severely understated. She has her quarters upstairs while they are residing in the living-room area, talking through the whole night even though there are two unoccupied beds in which they could lie._

_Angela quickly notices that both Sebastian and Ash have similar sleeping habits (or maybe a similar lack thereof), so sometimes, when she can't sleep either, she joins them downstairs as they talk the night away, and then the three of them fall asleep among painting utensils and sharp knives. She's always the first, dozing off with a small smile on her lips that makes her brother happy in return. They always give her the larger sofa, even if she's smaller than them, and take the other sofa together. When she falls silent, they do, too, and after additional hours they finally manage to close their eyes._

_Angela has breakfast ready three hours later._

_Sebastian notices that when Ash is at his small flat, when they go to a café, when they meet in the hallways, touches are a very regular occurrence._

_And thus he learns another secret._

_There is a moment he'll remember for years to come: They are sitting on Sebastian's sofa, facing each other. The wood-version of Sebastian is standing on a podium in the corner; it's barely eighty centimetres tall. Cups of tea are resting in their hands. Spring is there, but both of them are cold. And that is strange, because Angela who always complains is already wearing t-shirts. Sebastian has seen her a few days ago while buying new clothes for himself and has been mildly surprised._

_Ash is talking, and order is crawling away from his speech, then comes running back, and then shies away again. Then, rather suddenly, he halts in the middle of a sentence._

_Sebastian looks up from his cup at the silence. The sofa dips beneath his feet as Ash shifts his weight until he stands. He takes the cup from Sebastian and put it on the table along with his own. His hands wrap around Sebastian's and he regards them pensively. "You've got beautiful hands," he finally says._

_Sebastian is too busy watching the pale digits ghosting over the palm of his hand._

"_Be careful that nobody chops them off."_

_At this, Sebastian looks up again, ready to force the laugh when he sees Ash's serious expression. _

"_I'd keep them," the white-haired male says solemnly. His large pullover almost glides over his shoulder as he moves towards Sebastian a little, and of course, this sudden movement calls for the artist's attention. There is a small mole right beneath Ash's left collarbone which is prominent enough to cast a shadow over said mark._

_From thereon, Sebastian can draw Ash completely from memory._

_He grows rather fond of the nothingness that white holds. His paintings change from dark and heavy to white with spots of colour. Still full of meaning, just hidden better._

"_Modern art," Ash drawls and Sebastian laughs._

_Sebastian doesn't tell anyone about Ash, not even Undertaker whom he's known even before he started school. Since his last muse has voluntarily ran in front of a car, he doesn't really feel guilty about it – it's not as if he's done anything, and even if the muse before that has also died, he sees no pattern in this – but Undertaker does seem too amused by this incident._

_Maybe Undertaker knows when he sees Ash lounging on Sebastian's couch when he stops for a visit once. Maybe he doesn't. Reading that grin proves to be very hard at times._

_But Undertaker doesn't say anything, and even after Sebastian finishes university, not even after Sebastian buys back his home; even after both Ash and him become known around the world, he keeps quiet. _

_But Sebastian doesn't know about this now. What he knows as Undertaker introduces himself to Ash, is that he won't say a word about this. The photographer can assume, but Sebastian will stay silent._

_Because he thinks that sometimes, those smiling eyes are accusing him of murder. _

_And sometimes, he thinks they are right._

_Ash and Sebastian are feeding off of each other as they both use the other for inspiration. The image of Ash is growing inside him like a tumour. Ash is a disease that has found its way into Sebastian's blood stream; that is monopolizing his thoughts and is not curable at the moment. It feeds Sebastian image after image and whispers secrets in his ear. It philosophises with him at night. It clings to him, it hurts and it doesn't let him sleep for four days straight._

… _Whenever Sebastian looks at Ash, really looks at him; whenever he sees the bags underneath the young man's eyes, sees him lashing out more easily, sees him freezing in summer, he knows that he's also the white-haired man's disease. He starts counting the days that pass, feeling that Ash's life is about to crack like a mirror confronted with a fist. It's always like that, Sebastian is like a bad luck spell, cursing the ones that he sets his eyes on. Ash's sister is taking medications by now. Ash himself talks about scum, angels and suicide while drawing his knees to his chest._

_Sebastian just sits there and wants to laugh at his and the others' misery, but instead he takes a pencil and sketches a weary man's portrait. Ash just blinks at him, then continues reading the information on his sister's pills._

_They are feeding off of each other – and one year later, they are chewing on bones._

_Ash talks less but more disorganized, and he's trying to split himself into three pieces: On third for his love (art), one third for his family (Angela), one third for his infatuation/inspiration (Sebastian). It looks painful, and sometimes, he gives the impression of actually having managed the split. However, when they go out together, the change is instant: Ash smiles, charms and laughs; he talks and jokes and impresses and is one person again. _

_Sebastian just stands there, eyes crinkling with forced amusement, and can't remember when he's last slept._

_The sun is too bright._

_... One day Angela brings a friend with her, a petite blond female with ocean blue eyes and a kind smile. She's a pianist, she says, she graduated a few years ago, and she's already giving concerts all over the world. She has a child, she says, a young boy, six years old. _

_("Excuse me," Ash interrupts, "but you are quite young yourself." The blond woman smiles and says she couldn't be happier about her small (and successful) family.) _

_She's pretty, too, Sebastian notices, but he's too focussed on Ash's forced smile. He's never quite seen those lines before. _

_Nevertheless, he offers her a smile and a handshake. "I'm Sebastian."_

_Her hand is weightless, frail and soft in his. Insignificant. Later, he won't believe how such hands can create such thundering music when she plays Liszt. _

"_I'm Rachel Phantomhive."_

**OOO**

The phone rang.

Sebastian opened his eyes immediately, focussing on the heavy curtains in front of his bedroom windows. The digital clock at his bedside told him that it was only nine o'clock.

And it was Saturday.

Who the hell would dare wake him up on a Saturday?

He reached for his cell phone on the nightstand, sighing before he read the name on the display. He was immediately alert. "Ciel?"

"Good morning to you, too," the boy replied, all business. "Expected somebody else?"

Sebastian frowned at the phone even though he knew Ciel couldn't see him. "I expected Lady Sleep to stay a bit longer, you know, but it seems a certain boy has chased her away."

"I know that one," Ciel said, a hint of a smile in his voice. "She's shy. Now that she's gone you don't need to search for her. She won't come back for some time." Sebastian chuckled at the accuracy of the boy's words. It was almost mocking how well those words painted his sleeping habits. "I'm coming over."

This early? Well, that was a surprise. Sebastian wouldn't say no, though. "State your business. Why do you want to come?"

Ciel didn't sound amused at all. "I'd like to use your piano. Tell me whether Bard can bring me or not."

"My…" Sebastian frowned. "At nine o'clock in the morning?"

"Inspiration," the boy said curtly. "I'm sure you can understand."

Oh yes, he could. _Sadly_, he could. He allowed the boy to come over.

In fact, with his muse coming to him freely, Sebastian couldn't help but smile, despite having had the most uncomfortable night in years. Even though it was way too early for his tastes – 'early' because he'd only been sleeping for two or three hours -, this day promised to be productive.

Banishing his dream was a tad harder than he'd thought. Sebastian hadn't had such dreams in a long while. They always left a very bitter taste in his mouth. He was bound to relive this part of his history for the next couple nights.

He brushed his teeth twice, trying to get rid of the taste that wanted to drive him into a guilt trip, took a quick shower and put on a pair of old trousers and an equally old shirt. The gates were open, so he could hear the car wheels on the driveway from the kitchen as it approached. Taking his mug of coffee, he went to open the door before Ciel could ring the bell.

"Don't you have your own piano?" Sebastian asked in lieu of a greeting, figuring that if Ciel was able to play it, he should have one.

The boy stared at him.

Then he raised an eyebrow. Whether in dismay or whatever else, Sebastian didn't know. What he knew, though, was that he'd forgotten about the weather. It was _cold_. He should have put on a pullover.

"My aunt is sleeping."

"Your aunt-" Sebastian interrupted himself but let the boy in. "Since you had no scruple waking me up, I highly doubt that you came here because you didn't want to wake your aunt."

Ciel gave him a bored look. "But I did." As he took off his shoes, he added, "And because I wanted to see the gardens from the music room before it starts raining."

Sebastian looked up to the sky. According to the weather forecast, this would be the last 'mild' day before loads of snow would fall down on England. Also, this 'mild' day would consist of nothing more than heavy rain, perhaps lightning and thunder.

With the addition of goosebumps, Sebastian closed the door. "You musicians are strange sometimes."

Ciel looked as if he was suppressing a grin. "You said I could come anytime. I dearly hope you're not taking that back."

How could he? Sebastian couldn't help but feel glad that the boy was here. It gave him the chance to get to know Ciel a little bit more, and one day, he'd know him inside out. "I'm not. But if this continues, I might have to think of a solution. Undertaker has a set of spare keys, you know. The next time you feel like coming here early, go to his house, wake _him_ up and come in quietly. You wouldn't even have to call."

The boy's eyes widened a fraction before his expression changed into faint amusement. "I might keep that in mind."

Equally amused by their small exchange, Sebastian led him up the stairs and into the music room. It was strange how it had only taken about a month for the boy to start acting like the rest of Sebastian's acquaintances: They all came when they felt like coming (sometimes they were nice enough to call before they visited, as Ciel had done), especially in the evening when they knew that Sebastian never fell asleep until three to five a.m. and when Undertaker wasn't at home. He _did_ mind most of the time, but with Ciel, he just didn't feel like mustering up the energy to be angry with him. It would be forced annoyance, completely contrary to what he was really feeling.

Besides, it was a good sign that Ciel behaved like them. He showed that he was comfortable enough around Sebastian.

And it also showed that he'd rather wake him up instead of his aunt.

Nice lad.

"What are you working on?" he asked when the boy started unpacking his violin and sheets of handwritten music.

"It's called 'Encounter'", Ciel replied as he arranged the papers on the piano. "I've written a new sequence but I'd rather test it, see if I can change something." He halted in his movements. "Can I assume that if you have a piano, you also know how to play?"

Sebastian could see where this was going. "I'm not good at sight reading."

"The pace is slow."

"I haven't played in months."

"You can't unlearn something like playing piano."

Sebastian rolled his eyes, suppressed a yawn and decided that he might need more coffee later as he sat down on the music stool and looked at the music sheet. It looked fairly easy at the beginning, but he saw how the melody thickened towards page three.

Ciel readied his violin, tightened the bow hair, tuned his instrument after the piano and told him that he was the one who began.

So Sebastian started.

'Encounter' was a quiet piece, and at the beginning, he never had to play more than a full note. It became almost eerie when the violin joined, when the melodies started intertwining, first carefully, then on a more comfortable level.

When they came to the temporary end of the piece, Ciel seemed to be fighting his happiness.

Sebastian removed his fingers from the ivory keys and clapped.

The boy rolled his visible eye but was apparently in a good mood. "I think I can leave it this way."

"You should," Sebastian told him sincerely.

Ciel scribbled down some more notes on his paper. "The Viscount is throwing a party for me next Friday," he said.

"He mentioned it to me just yesterday." In fact, he'd called, given him a commission and had then started to praise the boy for half an hour _without_ repeating himself. This man just knew too many words to describe the very same thing. "It will be your birthday, right?"

Ciel nodded. "I think he must have invited you already, but I'll add that you are allowed to bring one of your acquaintances with you if you wish."

Sebastian grinned. "Thank you very much for the invitation, Mr Phantomhive. But my acquaintances are quite noisy."

"My aunt invited your cousin."

"On second thought, I think I'll call them."

Apparently satisfied with the response, Ciel continued composing as Sebastian got up and wondered who wasn't already invited. Undertaker and Gregory would probably attend with Claude and his little trio of fanboys (who in turn probably received their own invitations), seeing that they were his preferred photographers. Grell was just too annoying. He'd also think that they were on a date if Sebastian brought him along. Agni, while good company, was now a teacher with duties and had become quite serious due to all those children pestering him.

… Ronald it was, then.

"How do a violin and a saxophone sound together?" Sebastian asked casually, startling Ciel out of his thoughts. He knew it was an evil thing to do, for if Ciel had had an idea now, it was very likely gone until further notice.

The boy blinked at him. "Quite well when done right. Why?"

"I think you should meet this man." Sebastian pointed at the photograph of him trying to paint the guitarist with the blond and black hair. He knew that _Ciel_ knew whom he was talking about, even if he couldn't really see the picture from where he was sitting. It happened to be one of his favourite photographs, this Sebastian was aware of, since Ciel always looked at it whenever he entered this room. "He's actually an actor at the theatre, but his musical skills are well-known in London's clubs."

"Why not?" the boy finally said. "If he agrees to come, I won't mind."

"You're too generous, my lord."

"Shut up."

Ronald it was, then.

**OOO**

Ronald Knox was one of the more chaotic musicians/actors. He tended to… forget tidying up; therefore when Sebastian entered his apartment, it was slightly out of order.

Who was he fooling?

This was a chaos. Everywhere were things lying around, confetti included, as well as guitar picks, sheets of music, whole folders of whatever was inside them, and this was just the _corridor_.

Ronald, with his hair messier than usual and dressed in jogging pants and a wide t-shirt looked tired, but he also blushed as Sebastian raised an eyebrow at him, apparently very aware of how dishevelled he and his apartment were. "Hi."

The artist rolled his eyes. "Did you throw a party?"

"Is it obvious?"

"Yes. I actually don't know why I asked."

Ronald ducked a little bit. "You know, you sound like Grell's new love interest. I think it's a family trait."

This caught Sebastian's attention. "Come again?"

"You haven't heard?" Ronald straightened his posture and scratched the back of his head. "Most of the guys at the theatre know. He's totally after your cousin."

"William or Claude?"

"William." Ronald waggled his eyebrows. "Because he's more sadistic, I guess."

Sebastian groaned quietly. "Don't tell me _that_."

The actor laughed. "But don't worry. Grell will very likely still grace you with his attention. He doesn't know who he should choose."

Ronald really knew how to make someone's day. "How come you're not dressed?" Sebastian finally asked, cutting right to the point.

"I just woke up."

Sebastian rolled his eyes. "We are supposed to be there in half an hour and you _just woke up_?"

Ronald blinked. "We could be fashionably late, how about that?"

Sebastian pointed at the door that led to the bathroom.

Ronald quickly moved out of his sight, silently closing the door behind him. It didn't take long for the sound of falling water to reach the artist's ears.

The first thing that he thought afterwards was _Well, I never behaved like that._

The second was, _Who throws a party on a Thursday?_

He dearly hoped that he wouldn't see more than one cousin at the Viscount's. Claude was already enough to handle, but William always insisted on playing a happy family when he knew pretty well that all three of them just wanted to stab each other with the next best sharp object available. Claude tended to go after Sebastian more, for very personal reasons, but William somehow hated the artist more than he hated the designer which Sebastian, who was no threat to them anymore, couldn't understand in the slightest.

…

There was an empty beer bottle right in front of his feet.

Feeling his orderly side resurfacing at the mess presented to him, Sebastian quickly moved through the apartment, gathering the bottles (there were quite many of those) and put the used dishes he could find in the dishwasher.

When Ronald exited the bathroom with a towel around his waist, he grinned at the betterment of his apartment's current state. "That's why I love having you around, man."

"Careful," Sebastian warned, "I might never do that again."

Ronald quickly disappeared into his bedroom to change.

Sebastian leaned against the apartment door and waited. "You know, you're kind of unreliable."

His friend didn't answer, but the artist guessed that he was smiling sheepishly.

When Ronald was finally finished, he went to get his sax and put it in its case. "I hope that kid is as good as you promised."

Sebastian just nodded. "Are you ready now?"

"Wait, man, why in such a r-" Green-yellow eyes widened behind the pair of glasses as Ronald connected the dots. "Another victim. I get it. You want to impress, but because you're rubbish as a musician, you're trying to get him by displaying your friends."

"I'm a decent musician."

Ronald snorted. "Yeah, sure. Can't even get an accord right on the guitar."

Together they exited the apartment, leaving behind the mess from the other night. Sebastian assumed that Ronald wouldn't pick them up until the next day, seeing that he'd probably go to sleep the moment he got home.

Sometimes, Sebastian really envied him for falling asleep so easily.

When Ronald put the case in the trunk of Sebastian's car, he noticed the canvas on the backseat as he rounded the vehicle. "Pretty big that one. What's on it?"

Sebastian started the car when he heard the door close, catching the scent of Ronald's cologne. He steeled himself for the evening, feeling that the Viscount would annoy him until he got drunk enough to go to other people or glomp his little brother who in turn would continue smiling dazzlingly at the guests he was entertaining in lieu of Aleister.

Sebastian glanced at his friend who was still waiting for an answer and smiled to himself. "It's just a memory."


	8. Encounter II

**A/N:** An early update because I won't have any time tomorrow to post the new chapter. Please enjoy!

**Disclaimer:** I don't even know why I'm putting this up. Everybody knows that I don't own Kuro. Ah, wel, call it a force of habit...

**Chapter 7**

Aunt Anne was currently fixing his tie.

She had chosen his whole outfit, including the gloves he wore in order to touch other people safely. Ciel, on the other hand, moved to put away the outfit he'd chosen for himself once his aunt was satisfied with his tie, not feeling making it an issue between them. He was thirteen now and remembered that _back then_, he'd never thought he'd see his next birthday. Three years had passed, and on every birthday, Ciel could be found in a very solemn state of mind. This was his parents' death day. He would respect them. The past events hung heavily on him when he opened his eyes to this specific day, hoping that he could just go back to sleep and wake up on the 15th. Anne had been choking back tears earlier that day when they'd come back from the graveyard, and Ciel didn't want to make things worse. Maybe she wanted to celebrate at the Viscount's to forget the gruesome incident. So Ciel played along, choosing not to speak up today, and looked in the mirror to find a finely dressed boy with a serious expression, combed back hair and –

"We forgot the eye patch," he said carefully. His stomach was clenching and trying to empty itself on the spot, but Ciel didn't show it. He was physically repulsed by the sight of his own right eye. His legs felt weak, and he had trouble letting his own aunt come closer when she brought the eye patch.

Anne didn't notice. Ciel was getting better at this.

Even when the eye patch was in place, the fear and repulsion sadly remained.

The old butler Tanaka wished him a nice party as he opened the car door for him. Ciel thanked him politely and got in the backseat, heard the door close, and let out a long sigh.

Bard, sitting behind the steering wheel, turned. "Something wrong, birthday kid?"

"Not at all," Ciel answered, "just tired."

Bard laughed while the door to the passenger's seat was opened. "What? Oh, come on, the party hasn't even started yet."

The boy shrugged and forced a smile.

"He's always tired at the wrong moments," Anne said, sitting down slowly. "When he was younger, it had been even worse. But you'll surely be more awake at the party. Aleister invited so many people, you'll have to impress."

Oh, the party again…

Ciel appreciated the effort, he really did –

But he'd have preferred a silent evening in his room, refusing to answer the phone when his friends called and going to bed fairly early to be over with this. There was something wrong about trying to make your nephew well-known at his parents' death day.

The drive to the Viscount's didn't take as long as Ciel would have liked. The doors were opened for him and his aunt, and he already saw the first guests coming in. They probably didn't know that this was a birthday party, (and an opportunity for the Viscount to put his money on display) but thought it was a regular gathering since the Viscount had already announced that there were no Christmas or Sylvester parties. He was already invited. (Which also meant that Ciel would have to see him at Ash Landers' house.)

The Viscount was waiting by the door, hugging women and kissing the air next to cheeks and shaking hands and laughing loudly. Two of his songbirds would take off heavy coats and put them away while a third one – probably the favourite of that day – would just stand slightly behind her caretaker, protected yet well seen by the incoming guests, and just look pretty. They all wore white, knee-length summer dresses along with pink roses in their mostly open hair. Two of them wore a laced collar. Aleister's favourite wore a bracelet made from real red roses and also had those in her brown hair. Since the cold air was blowing in, they were wrapped in their little vests, but being warm looked different.

"And there are the Phantomhives!" Aleister called when Ciel and Anne entered (and it didn't matter that the surname of the latter was not Phantomhive). He first hugged the equally enthusiastic woman as if he hadn't seen her just a few weeks ago, then turned to Ciel. "How beautiful you are today! Your appearance is inspiring; I would sing a song, but I'm not drunk enough for that. Either way, your beauty is otherworldly. You must have been the goddess of inspiration in a past life, causing poets to write about their love for you and making musicians compose song after song until one day you would return their feelings!" He threw one arm up in the air while the other one was still holding his glass of red wine. Somebody clapped. Aleister cleared his throat. "Happy birthday, robin."

The songbird – not the same one that Ciel had met during his last stay – quirked a critical eyebrow at 'robin'. Her gaze flew from Ciel to Aleister and back, then she stepped forward and curtsied.

The boy was too busy wondering how much glasses Aleister had already had to really acknowledge her, feeling just a little awkward. But as always, being well-educated in how to be polite, he didn't allow his face to show what he was thinking. "Thank you."

"I hope you will enjoy this party," Aleister said, eyeing the songbird appreciatively before focusing on Ciel again. "Please go on; you know where the ballroom is. Your friends are there already, don't let them wait. Though please keep in mind that I will ask for your precious time in the course of the evening; be prepared, my beautiful robin!"

Ciel was already heading for the ballroom.

As soon as he stepped through the large doors, a flash of light blinded him. Confused, he blinked several times, only to suppress a start when this tired-looking young man with black hair and black lipstick started at him. In his hand, he was holding a camera, which he then proceeded to check. "No flashlight for this room," he said then.

A giggle sounded from Ciel's right. He turned to see the photographer who had been at Sebastian's three weeks ago. "I could have told you that myself," the man said to him. His cackles sounded like old wood floors creaking beneath one's feet, and his shaggy fringe hindered Ciel from looking into his eyes.

The raven-haired man with one white strand hanging into his face slowly lifted his gaze to the speaking man, his facial expression stubbornly blank, if not bored. "This is the boy, right?"

"Yup, that's him." The silver-haired man extended a hand – Ciel wondered how he managed his daily life with those ridiculously long fingernails. "Nice to meet ya, birthday boy. May you grow old and live a good life… and buy one of my coffins. They're high quality. I'm Undertaker, and that's my apprentice Gregory. We're this evening's photographers, so expect us to spontaneously take pictures of you; Aleister will probably make an album of this evening for you." A tell-tale click sounded when that Gregory-guy took another picture. "How old are you by the way?"

"Thirteen," Ciel said.

Undertaker hesitated. "Well," he said then, "Maybe I should also wish you a good growth spurt." While he laughed at his own joke, his apprentice blinked owlishly at him, the corners of _his_ mouth not even twitching.

Ciel had the vague feeling that those two always acted like that.

Somebody calling his name rather loudly - considering that the room was still quite empty - gave him the excuse to get away from the strange duo. Lizzie, Soma and Finny were there, and much to Ciel's surprise, Aunt Frances who lurked behind the adolescents, probably giving them gooseflesh. The three stormed towards Ciel while she greeted Aunt Anne. There wasn't too much love lost between them, but usually they were getting along all right.

"You've got some interesting connections," Soma said. "Man, that I'd ever be in Aleister Chamber's mansion!"

"And those songbirds are so cute!" Lizzie added, as if cute was what made the world go round. "I'll have to ask them where they got the clothes from." She blinked. "That one has a pen and a paper!" She pointed past them at a girl her age with black locks. "I'll be right back!" After a very sticky lip-gloss kiss, she approached the songbird. Ciel noticed that this one, like Aleister's favourite, didn't wear a lace collar.

"The three of us bought you a present," Finny said, "and it has been stored away. You might not see it until the end of the party, but we know that you'll like it."

Ciel raised an eyebrow. The ballroom gradually became fuller as more and more guests arrived. He wondered where Sebastian was. Would he come?

Claude and Alois Faustus entered the room, accompanied by Maurice Cole. Lizzie's squeal could be heard from across the room. Alois immediately spotted Ciel. He was currently hugging Claude's arm. The owner of said limb didn't seem affected by this at all. As soon as Claude's and Ciel's eyes met, something dark crossed the golden orbs behind the glasses, but Ciel couldn't be sure. It was probably a trick of the light.

All three of them came over and Ciel endured a birthday hug from Alois, even though there was little worse than this. Maybe it was the blond's sickly-sweet perfume that almost gave Ciel a headache. He looked around for Edgar – after all, the Viscount's brother always was around the designer - but he wasn't in the room yet. He shook hands with Claude and Maurice and learned that he's just received an invitation to London's biggest Faustus store where he could take the clothes he liked with him. He wouldn't have to pay up to a certain amount. Claude himself would be around, giving him fashion advice.

Ciel wasn't a girl, so he didn't get very excited about it, but he couldn't deny that Claude had style and taste and was expensive, so he appreciated this present very much.

In the corner of his eyes, he made out Lizzie's fidgeting as she moved closer and then back and then closer and then back again. Discreetly rolling his eyes, Ciel waved her over. While he didn't mind Claude's presence, Alois was just a pain and Maurice was looking at him oddly. He introduced his cousin to them who excitedly shook the designer's and model's hands before Alois gave her a bear hug. Those two either understood each other well or Alois was just trying to annoy Ciel.

"Where's Edgar, if I may ask?"

Lizzie's question seemed to make Maurice freeze. Claude slowly turned to the blond model, inquiringly arching an eyebrow.

"He's very sick," Maurice answered at length, pointedly looking at Lizzie who in turn gave a sad 'oh'.

"I hope he'll get well," she said.

Maurice smiled. "Me too."

Lizzie blushed and excused herself.

So that was how you get rid of her…

"I'm getting a drink," Maurice declared, walking away stiffly.

Alois, now modestly holding his caretaker's hand, looked after him. "Where's Edgar?" he asked, much like Lizzie had.

"Hanging over the toilet," Claude replied without sympathy.

Alois seemed happy about the words. Then his head perked up and he leaned a bit against the fashion designer. "Can we dance when the music starts?"

Claude gave him a look that even Ciel could read: _'Really now?'_

When Ciel searched for the musicians, hoping that when Alois got his dance he could sneak away, he spotted Aleister climbing up to the podium. He dove straight into an elaborate speech about his party, how he wished everyone a lot of fun, and then declared that it was Ciel's birthday, which had the women make adoring sounds and not only one man gave him a companionable pat on the back. Ciel forced himself not to jump out of his skin the first time this happened without warning, but he quickly grew used to it.

Then, at the end of Aleister's speech, a young man climbed up to the podium, his loosely-fitting suit looking stylish on him (even Claude commented on it, which didn't seem to make Alois happy) as he rolled back the sleeves.

Ciel recognized that grin.

Somebody gave him a saxophone. The boy couldn't see who it was, only the large hands indicated that it was a man. The black nail polish could indicate that it was Sebastian. So he'd come. Ciel felt strangely relieved.

Aleister grinned widely at the bespectacled man, puffing out his chest and making an elaborate comment on how he always found those great artists of every metier. The younger male glanced at him, definitely unsure, before he shrugged and began a jazzy variation of 'Happy Birthday' tune.

Ciel couldn't fight the grin that came onto his lips, and he wished he had his violin with him when the man called for him to come up to the podium. A warm, small yet strong hand wrapped around his wrist and when he turned around, it was Frances behind him, holding a violin case, looking quite gloomy with her eyebrows drawn together as if she was angry with somebody. "I wanted to give you this one later that evening, but I think it's of more use when I do it now." She hesitated, then pushed the case into Ciel's hands. The boy just wanted to say that he was quite happy with his own violin when he noticed that this case wasn't new at all. The handle was worn and the dark green fabric covering it smelled dusty.

Feeling everyone's eyes on him as they all waited for him to join the saxophonist, Ciel put the case on the floor and opened it.

While the strings were new, the bow seemed as old as the instrument itself. Ciel carefully exhaled, feeling vulnerable among so many people watching him. "I thought I should give it to you now. While you're still small you can use it," Aunt Frances said, and Ciel didn't even manage to glare at her. He removed his gloves and carefully took out his father's old violin, rosined the bow and went up to the podium, not really knowing what he should do with this magnificent, _precious_ thing in his hands.

Then he put the instrument between his shoulder and chin and turned to the musician whose name he still didn't know. He tuned the violin after the saxophone, and it didn't take very long until he had the best improvised duet ever. They didn't care about the audience as they played, but Ciel felt bothered by a certain someone's gaze. He locked eyes with Sebastian who was standing right in front of the podium and gave him a small smile. The artist nodded in something that must be approval, his gaze trailing up and down the younger male's body. With a slight huff (and a barely audible alarm going off in his head), Ciel concentrated on his music. His father's violin sounded so sweet and strong, maybe Ciel would only play on that one in the future.

Soon, even a pianist and a bassist joined the pair, contributing to the tune. The saxophonist waggled his eyebrows at them. He had this charming, playful air around him, and when he shot Ciel amused yet impressed looks, it only added to the boy's recovering mood.

When the improvisation ended, the applause was genuine. The saxophonist brushed a hand through his bi-coloured hair and whistled lowly. "Man, you're good." He extended his free hand. "I'm Ronald Knox. Don't know whether Sebastian has been too preoccupied to tell you who I am or not, so I might as well introduce myself."

Ciel switched the violin into the hand that already held the bow in order to shake the blond's hand. He noticed that the more he did this, the less he was afraid of the touch. Apprehensive, but nothing more. "Nice to meet you. I'm Ciel Phantomhive." He exchanged a few polite words with the bassist and the pianist before other musicians appeared with their instruments, causing Ciel and Ronald to give them some space. Ciel could feel Sebastian's eyes on him as he got down from the podium, but he didn't meet the artist's gaze yet.

Ronald winked at him. "Gotta put this baby away now. We'll see each other again this evening."

Ciel, who was still holding his father's violin, nodded and watched him go. As soon as he was alone, he was pestered with questions mostly from women who were quite curious about his life. He humoured them a little, this was how his father had raised him, and answered their questions as well as he could. The last three or four years were never mentioned and Ciel was glad that they didn't bring it up.

Aunt Frances and Anne came with the violin case and the gloves he'd taken off so that Ciel could put his instrument back. "Thank you for this present," the boy said.

"Oh, it was nothing," Frances said. There was a tiny smile on her usually strict face. "Your father would have wanted you to use it before you need a bigger one."

She put the violin away for him while Angelina monopolized the other guests' attention. Ciel, feeling that he could go now, spotted Sebastian by the glass door leading to the terrace. The artist was currently talking to the Viscount. Aleister's arm was wrapped around a songbird's shoulder. The girls were everywhere, dancing with male guests, enjoying themselves or just standing around, chancing odd looks at Ciel and/or Maurice. Some had gathered around Sebastian, listening to the conversation; Lizzie had managed to get three girls to converse with her. They were currently talking with the help of pen and paper. The youngest of them was around six years old and currently standing in front of the odd photographer duo. Undertaker smiled at her creepily. Gregory cradled his camera to his chest and slowly extended a hand to pat her honey-coloured locks. She outstretched her arm and went on the tip of her toes, trying to return the sentiment. After some hesitation, Gregory crouched in front of her.

Looking as if she might squeal in joy, she patted his head, too.

"Robin! Please join us!"

Ciel didn't know whether annoyed sighs were appropriate right now, so he just approached the Viscount and the artist, not making a single expression. Claude would be proud of him.

"What extraordinary skills you have!" The Viscount swayed slightly on his feet. Ciel couldn't tell whether it was an intended sway or whether he was tipsy/drunk. Either way, the songbird didn't even react to him leaning against her heavily for a short second.

The boy forced a smile – he was also getting better at that – and thanked him.

"I also have a present for you," Sebastian spoke up. "You'll see it after the party."

Ciel nodded, unable to keep the excitement inside him at bay. There was no reason to be, he told himself, it would just be a painting. He didn't know why Sebastian would sacrifice his time and money on something that he was going to give a boy.

Ah, well, if he insisted…

Before Ciel could reply, Aleister made a sound that sounded distinctively like a moan. "I love this piece! It's Mozart!" Ciel had noticed the man's preference for Mozart. "May I ask for your time, little robin?"

"… Excuse me?" Ciel wasn't sure, but that had sounded like an offer to dance.

"I would like to move my feet to this wonderful music while twirling with you across the dance floor."

Behind Aleister, the corners of Sebastian's mouth were quirking traitorously. Ciel almost glared at him.

"You want to dance with me?" Ciel repeated. "But I'm a boy."

"I know that, little robin! What's wrong about two men dancing together?"

"Well, nothing," Ciel said, feeling that he shouldn't add the 'but grown men dancing with young boys certainly gives away strange vibes' -part.

"There you have it." Aleister let go of his perfectly edible dance partner – the songbird frowned mildly – and shoved his drink into Sebastian's hand. Miraculously, nothing was spilled. He took Ciel's gloved hand into his own clothed one and led him to the dancing couples.

Ciel didn't know how to dance correctly. He recalled his father lifting him onto his own feet as a three-year-old, showing him the correct steps on a free evening in summer. He remembered recent lessons with his Aunt who had curiously taken the role of the leader while Ciel, moving along with her and trying not to step on her pumps, had felt separated from his masculinity. And now he was going to dance with Aleister Chamber who was also going to let him dance the woman's part.

This was horrible. And exactly the reason why he preferred _making_ the music and watching the people dance instead of having it the other way round.

Aleister's hand was a little low on his back, but Ciel didn't say anything. The Viscount, always surprising with his alertness, noticed the boy's stiffness. "You can't dance when you're so uncomfortably tense. Has it got something to do with my touch?"

"I…" Ciel stared at him when he understood what had been said. He decided to tell him the truth, thinking that it would make the Viscount remove his hand. "Yes, actually. But I'm working on getting used to touches."

A moment of silence. "Oh, well then."

That hand did not move an inch from his lower back. Ciel could have sworn it went even lower for a minute as they danced.

"You know, you're a very special young man," Aleister started. "I could definitely see you as a songbird."

Ciel almost grimaced. Being pestered by the Viscount all day didn't sound very nice. "A shame that I'm not mute."

There was a shadow in Aleister's eyes. "No, you aren't." Ciel was subjected to a twirl, and when their gazes met again, the Viscount seemed of good spirits again. "But fate might fix that. If you ever happen to lose your voice, you can come to me."

This was getting very strange by the second. "Thank you? I'll… keep that in mind."

"Please do. Now to other things: I've been making some plans. You have to appear more often in public. I thought that you could play at Sebastian's and Ash's art exhibition this spring."

"I could do that," Ciel answered.

"Wonderful. If there is anything else you need from me, don't hesitate to ask and I'll give it to you." Aleister smirked as his hand wandered quite low but not low enough to be outright indecent. Ciel had to try his hardest to stay calm as the Viscount's face came closer to his, the scent of wine and mint on his breath. "Anything."

Not sure whether he should be shocked or scared, Ciel opened his mouth and closed it again, feeling like a fish. He was extremely glad when the song ended. "Thank you for the offer, but I don't need... anything... at the moment."

Aleister asked him for the next dance and Ciel politely declined. When the Viscount called for his songbird, the boy left him. Now he was able to breathe again. "All yours," he said in passing.

The girl halted, looking puzzled, but then her eyes crinkled in faint, dry, almost poisonous amusement. When the Viscount called her again, she hesitated before finally approaching him.

Ciel looked for Sebastian and almost felt sorry for the man when he saw him posing with Claude and Alois. The cousins had an arm round the other's shoulders, and Claude had pulled Alois close. The adopted boy was (smug) content with leaning against his caretaker's body while he watched the scene without any comment whatsoever. Undertaker failed at taking a picture for he was laughing so hard it could be heard over the music. "Don't give me that constipated look, Claude!"

The designer's expression only became sourer.

Undertaker cried from laughter. His apprentice was oddly unaffected.

Sebastian rolled his eyes, but his shoulders shook from the effort to hold his own laughter in.

"I can't take a picture like this. It's just too hilarious!" Undertaker was gasping for air, slowly calming down. When he lifted his head to look at Claude, manic giggles filled the room again.

Gregory took a picture. Four pairs of eyes were glued to him. "Thank you, my friend," he said to Undertaker. "Claude was so annoyed and Sebastian so amused, they forgot that they were almost hugging each other."

Claude dropped his arm as if he'd burned it. Sebastian didn't react to this at all. He spotted Ciel who'd come closer to watch the whole spectacle and approached him. "What are you doing?" the boy asked.

"Trying to help William for now," Sebastian replied. "It's what the press expects from us."

"If you're doing that because the press expects it, it's not helping William, it's helping yourself," Ciel pointed out.

"That's right," Sebastian said without missing a beat.

Ronald had spontaneously joined the musicians and was now improvising along to a more contemporary piece. Ciel caught glimpse of Soma and Finny dancing with their partners. While Finny had not sense of rhythm whatsoever, Soma was quite good, making the songbird he was dancing with grin widely. They probably had little fun with Aleister praising their beauty every day. Lizzie and the songbirds she was still talking to were on the 'Let me feel the fabric of your dress' base, and Alois was glued to Claude who in turn was keeping his eyes on Sebastian. Ciel didn't know why, but he assumed that it had to do with their dislike towards each other.

Maurice was also in sight, talking to various guests and then got between the Viscount's claws. As Aleister and he had a rather restrained conversation, the older man's face fell at Maurice's words. He quickly shook his head, looking close to crying, and then miraculously caught himself before he leaned in close, causing Maurice to lean back in return. The Viscount's eyes reminded the boy of the predators of his past.

Ciel briefly wondered what was being said as Maurice grew a little pale, but decided that he didn't want to know. "I'm getting bored," he spoke up.

"Already?" Sebastian looked at him. "What would you like me to do about it?"

That was the question Ciel had wanted to hear. "Show me where my presents are. Specifically yours."

Sebastian looked to the left, then to the right as if he thought it was forbidden to leave the room, and then he bowed. "Follow me, sir."

Ciel snorted softly but did as he was told. They left the ballroom and climbed up the nearest staircase together. When Ciel followed Sebastian down the eerily deserted hallway, he started feeling a little bit strange alone with the man. Not because he was scared; it was a simple observation: 'He could do anything to me up here'.

But what Sebastian did was open the door to a pitch black room. When he switched on the lights, Ciel smiled when he spotted the violin case and the other presents from his friends and his Aunt. Even his staff at the Phantomhive estate had bought him something small. He headed straight for the framed painting leaning against the bed of the guestroom they were in. Handling it carefully, he turned it around, so that he could –

This painting wasn't what Sebastian usually drew. It showed a young mother sitting on a white chair in a garden. She was dressed in white, her blond hair flowing down her back in neat locks. A boy was sitting across the small white metal table, grinning at his mother with wide, adoring eyes as he gave her a yellow rose.

Ciel swallowed the lump in his throat. It didn't move. "I… can't remember this garden."

"You were quite young," Sebastian said behind him. "It's Ash Lander's garden. He had this small house in which he lived with his sister while studying. Your mother was Angela's friend."

The boy was at a loss for words. First he'd received his father's old violin, and now he was confronted with a scene from old times… The date was next to Sebastian's signature in the corner. He'd painted it this month.

"It's something I remembered one of these days," Sebastian said. The ruffling of his clothes could be heard as he went to Ciel.

Angela… Ciel thought he remembered that woman. Yes, she'd always been around. He didn't quite know whether he'd ever caught a glimpse of her twin brother, but how could he not have made the connection at the ball? Angela's warm smiles returned to his memories, how she had picked him up whenever she visited and spun him around. How she had always talked fondly of her brother and his friend, who had seemed inseparable in Ciel's opinion. How sweet cello music had been accompanied by the piano, with Ciel sitting in the music room and listening. Angela had always smuggled in sweets for Ciel and treats for his dog. How could he have forgotten her? He tended to do that a lot with things that had happened before _that_ month three years ago. And as soon as his thoughts crossed that path, he felt his pulse quicken.

"I know who Angela is," he said, "I'm just wondering where…"

"Was," Sebastian corrected him.

Ciel's mind came to a screeching halt. "Was?"

"She was… run over by a car the same year."

And Ciel remembered. Looking at the painting just made the knot in his throat grow. "You always seek to shake me, don't you?"

"You're shaken?" Sebastian asked, sounding smug, amused and surprised at the same time. "I thought I should give you piece of my memories, since it has to do something with your mother. I knew Rachel through Angela."

The artist's body behind Ciel emitted warmth and safety and something akin to comfort, so Ciel didn't even protest when two arms crossed in front of his chest and pulled him against Sebastian's front. They stayed like that and Ciel wondered how he didn't mind in the slightest. The sight of his mother and him together, the energy it took to repress every negative feeling (including grief) just took its toll. Ciel couldn't bother telling Sebastian not to touch him. The artist knew of this policy himself, which in turn just meant that he was seizing the opportunity. Ciel couldn't care less this one time. And after all, Sebastian was relatively safe. "I take it you've seen me before?"

"I have, only once. You were pretty quick to dismiss me because Angela had sweets."

At this, Ciel almost smiled.

"When I saw you at that ball, I didn't know it was you at first. That only happened when I made sure that there was only one Ciel Phantomhive with blue eyes and blue-grey hair."

"I don't remember _you_," Ciel said honestly.

"That's not important." Sebastian's breath was close to his ear, causing the alarm to go off in Ciel's head. "I'm here now, am I not? You won't forget me this time."

* * *

_Hope you all enjoyed this chapter; don't forget the reviews, huns. Even if I can't answer all the time, I do read them and I appreciate each one of them =D_

_Aaaaand you might want to check out my other fic** 'Hymn for The Living'**! It's a Seb/Ciel too, modern Au with demon!Ciel and human!Seb *not very subtle advertising*_


	9. Encounter III

**Disclaimer:**Still no.

**Chapter 8**

Edgar Redmond, professional model, the face of the Faustus brand and one of the most beautiful men that England had to offer, looked absolutely _terrible_.

Sebastian, with his large sketch-book and pencils in tow, mulled it over, trying to put Edgar and the dark circles beneath his eyes into one and the same sentence. His lips were colourless, his hair looked brittle, and when he smiled, it looked more tired than anything else. His cheeks were sunken in.

"Sebastian," he said.

"I can come any other time," Sebastian cut in.

"Oh, no, it's alright." Edgar let him in. "Let me get ready quickly, I'll be there in a flash. Maurice!"

The younger model came around the corner, looking at Sebastian from across the corridor. He waved, the usual sweet smile looking strained on his face.

Something was very wrong here.

"Please come with me," Maurice said as Edgar left.

Sebastian took his shoes off, shed his coat and followed him. He'd never been in Edgar's apartment before; there'd never been a reason to. His socked feet shuffled over cool lightwood, the only speck of colour that this home had to offer. Everything else was white: The modern style furniture, the walls, the decorating carpets, the kitchen, the bathroom, the _plants_,…

Even Ash Landers had more colour to offer in his home, despite his obsession with purity and cleanliness.

Sebastian sat through the resulting onslaught of memories that had been triggered by the name of the other artist while Maurice prepared a cup of tea for him. "Edgar is a little bit sick, but it's nothing contagious."

Sebastian nodded at the younger male's back, a little sceptic about the whole thing. It sounded as if Maurice himself didn't believe it. He didn't dwell further on it, figuring that it was their business, not his. It wasn't as if they were that close. Their field of acquaintances happened to overlap somewhere, which had introduced them to each other.

When Edgar returned fifteen minutes later, Sebastian was leaning against the living-room wall, admiring the lack of decorum that this room possessed. The model had managed to conceal the dark circles under his eyes, his hair looked healthy again, tied together in the style that everyone was used to. Even his lips were of a rosier colour and his face didn't equal one of a dead person.

And that was good, because Sebastian would only draw what he saw. If Edgar happened to look anaemic and malnourished, then Sebastian would have drawn him like that. The model had probably expected that, since it did look as if he'd put an effort into his make-up. He walked with confident strides, looking like he usually did, and then feigned surprise. "Where's the kid?"

"What kid?" Sebastian asked.

"The violinist," Edgar said. "I thought he's always around you these days."

"Ciel is independent enough _not_ to be Alois," Sebastian answered pointedly. Besides, this was a Monday, so Ciel was still at school.

The older model seemed to fight a smile while Maurice just stared at his friend. Sebastian had always thought that the younger blond's infatuation was quite obvious, yet Edgar was blissfully unaware. It was almost a sad sight to be confronted with if Maurice didn't happen to be a bloody sneaky bastard. He was usually set up on destroying Edgar's relationships in such a refined way that it didn't even occur to anyone that he was to blame. Sebastian just happened to know because Undertaker knew. How he had come to that information was another matter entirely, but Sebastian guessed it wasn't that hard to find out such things when you were frequently interacting with Maurice. It was easier to read him the longer you knew him. Body language was something that wasn't lost on him and Undertaker happened to be one to interpret it perfectly.

Edgar, apparently, tended to overlook Maurice if he never picked up on such things. It just had to be a form of dismissal, for the older model was just as alert as Undertaker around people.

"Indeed," Edgar muttered at the moment. He sat down in his armchair, naturally striking a pose. Maurice looked at him for a while and then sat on the armrest. "Sometimes I wonder how Claude can even breathe with Alois hugging him all the time."

"I'm sure the body gets used to it," Maurice said. "Just like it does with corsets."

Sebastian figured that he could begin since they had basically stopped moving.

"He's pretty, though," Edgar continued.

At this, the younger blond's eyebrow shot up. "I guess so."

"Just like Ciel."

Maurice nodded. It was hard to tell what he was thinking now.

"And you." When Edgar looked at his younger friend, there was just mild surprise and pink cheeks. Rosy lips parted slowly and long lashes almost touched paper-white cheeks as Edgar lowered his gaze to Maurice's hand that was rested on his upper thigh. "You all need to be careful," he said.

Maurice cocked his head to the side, inquiring, and Edgar caught the movement. He gave him a wry smile and then locked gazes with Sebastian. "Don't forget that."

The artist understood. "I'm very sure Ciel knows that himself."

"Of all the people, _he_ should." Edgar sighed, and it was a measured sigh, a very controlled exhale, as if he was afraid that a simple thing like that would tell others too much.

Sebastian wondered, silently by himself, and carried on with what he was supposed to do.

**OOO**

"You're not drawing me."

Sebastian kept stirring his tea, feeling the need to do it even though he could have stopped a while ago. "That is an accurate observation."

Small hands held their own cup in order to get warm. Ciel stared at him with polite interest. "My," he said then, "I didn't know Edgar and Maurice were that troubling yesterday."

The artist chuckled. "They weren't," he answered. "But they tend to surprise me in the most negative sense sometimes."

"That is troubling."

Sebastian shook his head. "Edgar has just been behaving a little bit differently these days. And he told me that you should be careful."

The reaction was very interesting: Ciel's shoulders stiffened, his gaze became hard right away and his fingers tightened around his cup. He took a sip, appearing pensive yet angry, and Sebastian noticed with mild curiosity that he was trying very hard to keep his breathing in check. "About what?"

"I don't know. You tell me."

"He obviously knows more than me."

"I wouldn't say that, judging by your reaction. You know what he's been hinting at."

Ciel scowled at him. "I don't. We're not thinking of the same thing."

"Doesn't that make things even more dangerous?"

Ciel got up, deciding not to grace this with an answer. He walked across the living-room, then opened the door to the balcony.

Sebastian finally set his spoon down. "_Are_ we talking about an actual danger here?"

Silence.

Then: "Yes."

The artist nodded in thought. "What kind of danger?"

"I'm not going to answer that."

"Do you think Edgar knows the source of this?"

"I don't know," Ciel admitted. "He's probably talking about something else."

Sebastian mulled over this, inwardly dancing because he was getting closer to Ciel's life story and the boy himself. "So we have several potential sources of danger-"

"Look," Ciel cut in, "I'm not going to talk about that."

The artist looked up lazily. "No, please do. How do you know that Edgar could be speaking of something or somebody else? You've been referring to your kidnappers, haven't you?" He closed his fingers around his cup, drumming carefully against the porcelain. Ciel turned to him with carefully expressionless features. "From the way you've been speaking, they are still around, aren't they?"

There was a very long pause in which Sebastian would have expected a panic attack or pure fury. But Ciel stared at him, just stared at him, and then he said, "There's one left."

Registering the words was easier than really understanding them. Tension hung in the air like a pitch black curtain as Sebastian could only imagine how the boy must feel like knowing this. "Did you tell the police?"

"They didn't find him," Ciel replied. "He's gone. Vanished. I never told anyone else."

At this, Sebastian looked up. He suddenly felt this pang in his chest, this very uncomfortable tightening, and wondered what was wrong with him. It was definitely not a pleasant feeling. He wanted to apologise for having asked one question too many, but instead he leaned back in his seat, thinking that this was more than only progress.

This was trust.

"Maybe he's dead," he suggested.

"Maybe he's not." Ciel's voice held a sharp edge. "I don't want to talk about it." He turned to look at Sebastian for a long time, and it occurred to the artist that he could have been angrier.

"I'm not going to ask," Sebastian assured, feeling uncomfortable and smug at the same time.

At least not today.

The boy nodded. And just like that the mood shifted; the air around them cleared as if somebody had opened the windows to let the tension out.

Sebastian watched the boy admiring the drawings in this room. This had been his parents' favourite room, so he didn't often sit here. But Ciel had stuck his head inside and had refused to get out. Here, Sebastian had stored the drawings that he sometimes wished he could set on fire. He didn't hate them because they were poorly drawn or embarrassing, he just didn't like seeing them.

For example that pastel drawing that he had done when Claude had somehow managed to inspire him: Somebody dancing by the sea at night.

Sebastian hated it without any reason whatsoever. He could have sold it, for it was surprisingly realistic and accurate in proportions and perspective (he'd been fourteen when he'd drawn it), but he hated it enough _not_ to sell it.

He even hated it enough not to burn it.

So he'd left it in this room, along with a few other paintings, drawings, sketches and little sculptures that he either couldn't stand or just didn't want to be reminded of.

All in all, he didn't even like this _room_.

But Ciel did, so he let the boy have his way.

"Who's that?"

Sebastian got up and followed the boy's voice into the room's appendix where once a piano had stood that now had been transferred to the music room. Upon his arrival, Ciel pointed at the pencil drawing of a man in a loosely-fitting pullover holding a sheet of paper in his hands and studying it carefully. The artist looked at the portrait for a short while and then exhaled.

"That would be Ash Landers." He took a sip from his tea cup. "I titled it 'Insomnia'. Do you find it fitting?"

"I…" Ciel looked closer. "I think that this is a very personal moment," he said. "Also, I think you've been drawing him quite a lot."

Sebastian made a noncommittal sound. "How do you know?"

Ciel shot him a dry look. "There were paintings of a white-haired man in the corridor that leads to this room. Also, I've taken a look at your old sketches once." He nodded at the painting they were standing in front of. "Was he a muse?"

Feeling where this was going, Sebastian nodded slowly. Perhaps it wasn't the time to tell him anything about any of the muses yet. Even though Ciel has developed a sense of trust for him, the artist wasn't very sure about how long it would last if he told them that almost all of them had somehow died. "One out of six… Seven," he added with a short glance at the boy.

"Seven of them?" Ciel looked at him, faint interest showing in his features. He did obviously know that Sebastian had counted him in too but was not inclined to refer to the muses as 'us'. "Would you show them to me?"

_Alive? Because I can't do that_, was what Sebastian would have said until he realized that the young teen was probably talking about drawings.

"Why not?" he muttered, more to himself than to Ciel. If the boy was busy looking, he wouldn't ask too many questions, would he?

It didn't take him long to gather some portraits of each of them (even Claude; Sebastian cringed at this and Ciel shot him a look). At one point he'd always drawn a portrait of his muses or added them in a painting.

"You can be glad that I kept the ones from thirteen years ago," he said as he brought all the drawings to the living-room that he hated so much.

Ciel who'd been staring at Ash's portrait, focussed his attention on the artist. "Thirteen years ago?"

"As soon as I had managed to draw semi-realistic and make it look good, I found my first muse." Sebastian pointed at a girl with curly black hair. He'd always found that Bianca had possessed this seductiveness, which she couldn't quite manage at her age back then. She would have become a temptress had she only lived long enough. "My cousin. She always wanted to be called 'Beast'."

"Why did you like her?" Ciel took the old sheet of paper.

"She was wild."

The boy halted. "… 'Was'?"

Sebastian hesitated only for a second. "She fell down the stairs and broke her neck." But the inspiration she'd given to him had lasted for almost a year. It wasn't much compared to the two years he'd gotten from a boy who only wanted to be called Joker when he'd been about to finish school. Beast herself had lasted only three months before she'd died.

Silence. Moving slowly, the boy carefully put back the portrait. "Sorry about that."

"Don't be. The outer circle was happy about having one rival gone."

"I don't think that this is the normal reaction to a death in your family."

"That's just how the Michaelis work." Sebastian shrugged, smiling. "We have no regrets, no remorse, we don't grieve and nobody is missed once they're gone. You did the research on me, I shouldn't have to tell you about this at all."

Feeling sick to his stomach, he inched closer to Ciel who in turn hadn't moved at all since Sebastian had told him about Beast's death. Now that the artist was invading his personal space, Ciel did move a bit. He leaned back slowly as Sebastian came closer, his knees drawn up and his shins almost seemed like a small barrier. Sebastian smirked at this and laid a hand on either of the boy's knees. Ciel flinched and stopped moving immediately, eyes narrowing in a calculating fashion.

"Back in the eighteenth century, people claimed we've come straight from hell," he said, "that each and every one of us is a demon." Then he sat back, his hands leaving the boy's knees. "Can't blame them."

Ciel was still immobile for twenty seconds, then he finally started moving again, surprisingly scooting a little bit _closer_ to Sebastian as if that was where he'd been sitting before. "Was that necessary?"

"I'm demon spawn. Of course it was."

Raising an eyebrow, Ciel shook his head but didn't seem offended, scared or anything else than indifferent. He pointed at the next picture. "That is Claude, isn't it? I thought you hated each other."

"Well," Sebastian began, checking his watch, "we happened to be little rebels by not hating each other. It changed, though." But he didn't want to talk about this. He got up, offering his hand to the boy. "I need to bring the drawing to Edgar. Are you coming with me?"

Obviously confused from the sudden change in topic, Ciel stared at him, then at his hand. It was extremely hard to guess his thoughts, so Sebastian assumed he was either still trying to process what was happening or what had happened. "Or would you prefer calling you chauffeur and go home? It's rather late, maybe you should go to bed."

"Who are you to decide that?" Ciel scoffed, taking the proffered hand and letting himself be pulled to his feet. "I'm thirteen now."

Sebastian didn't dare laugh at that. "If you say so, master Phantomhive."

Taking the lead, Ciel left the living-room as if this was his mansion. Sebastian couldn't help but notice how good the boy looked in his house. He could have been an inhabitant, not a visitor. The mansion complimented him as well as the other way round.

When the framed drawing was in Sebastian's car and they were headed for the model's apartment, Ciel busied himself by looking out the window. Sebastian didn't observe the boy's behaviour, feeling that if his presence wasn't overbearing, Ciel would relax faster.

Arriving at the apartment house, Sebastian let the boy walk ahead while he took the drawing from his trunk. He had perfected it at home and now it looked like monochrome photograph. At the highest floor, Edgar greeted them with a smile that seemed much more like him. His lips were still bloodless and the circles under his eyes had to have been concealed, but at least the young man in front of them was not a zombie. Maurice was, oddly enough, lying on a chaise lounge, reading a magazine and dressed in (nothing but) a bathrobe. His curls seemed to be damp as he combed his hand through them absently. He turned around, his cat-like grin appearing as he greeted them from where he was laying. There was nothing left of the hesitation he usually showed in public, perhaps he knew that Sebastian had never fallen for the shy-yet-good-boy act.

Edgar acted as if having the guy who was crazy about you as good a naked in your living-room at close to ten p.m. was the most normal thing in the world. He took the drawing from Sebastian and leaned it against a wall. "I love it! You did a wonderful job, Sebastian!" There was a long pause as he looked at the drawing again. "No wonder my brother is crazy about your work. It is truly beautiful."

Maurice who'd been lying on his stomach before had turned around and sat up, craning his neck to catch a glimpse of the drawing. Sebastian could see his expression darkening when Edgar surprisingly gave the artist a peck on the cheek. Quite surprised by this action, Sebastian looked into scarlet eyes twinkling with amusement. "I hope that wasn't the payment," he said blankly, not knowing whether he should be disgusted by this action (this was Claude's _favourite_, after all) or just overlook it.

"Would you rather have this body?" Edgar asked, cocking an eyebrow. He was way too close for Sebastian's taste.

Before the artist could decline, Ciel spoke up: "Sebastian, don't look so contemplating. I didn't know you are one of that kind. We've got money these days. But hurry up if you need it today, I'd like to go home."

A beat of silence passed before Edgar turned to the boy. Then he burst into surprised but genuine-sounding laughter. Maurice unfortunately didn't find it half as funny as his friend did.

"What an adorable kid!" Edgar ruffled Ciel's hair, which the boy didn't seem to appreciate. "I _like_ you, cutie pie. Our shooting will be perfect, I just know it."

Even Ciel glanced at Maurice at this, probably feeling the force of the model's glare.

How could somebody like Edgar be so _oblivious_?

"I hope for a good shooting, too," Ciel said.

"Who doesn't?" Edgar threw his (open) hair over his shoulder. "If you need to know anything, ask me. We'll get along well, won't we?"

When Ciel nodded, Sebastian somehow felt a spark of relief. If Edgar did like Ciel, then the possibility of losing the Viscount as a benefactor wasn't high anymore.

The model turned to the artist, smiling/smirking. "Are you also going to be there or will I have him all to myself?"

"All to yourself, unfortunately," Sebastian answered. "I would have loved to protect you from your manicured claws, but I'm having an interview this Friday."

Edgar raised an eyebrow at Sebastian's impoliteness but didn't say anything. He never did. Instead, he turned to Ciel again. "You've got school tomorrow, don't you? I hate to tell you goodbye, but…"

"Sure," Ciel said, sounding a tad too eager which almost made Sebastian chuckle. "We're leaving, aren't we, Sebastian?"

The artist bowed in a mocking fashion, smirking at the boy. "Yes, my lord."

Ciel stepped back from Edgar and raised his chin. "Good."

The friendly expression slid off of Edgar's face as Ciel turned his back to the model. "Wait, dear." And he grabbed Ciel by the wrist. The boy flinched and looked over his shoulder as Edgar loomed over him. He whispered something into Ciel's ear and then let go. "Goodbye, sweetie."

Ciel walked over to Sebastian, not meeting the artist's eye. They left the apartment in silence but Sebastian decided to ask him when they sat in the car.

"What did he say?"

The boy hesitated. Then he shrugged. "He told me to be careful."

* * *

_Don't forget to tell me how you liked the chapter, dears! =D_


	10. Encounter IV

**A/N:** I assume you've all read chapter 71. Obviously, I didn't see it coming that Maurice isn't a naturally pretty boy, so this will fall away as a canon element, since I do need his prettiness for the plot. You'll see why. Beta'ing was done by the wonderful Carrie2sky.

**Disclaimer:** Not mine.

**Chapter 9**

Aunt Anne was having a good day.

She woke Ciel up, therefore her grinning red lips were the first thing he saw that morning.

"Wake up, my little model! Today's a big day."

Ciel just stared at her tiredly until he understood that it was Friday, the day of the shooting. He slowly sat up, noticing that there were different sets of clothes lying at the end of the bed.

"I didn't know what you should wear," Anne said, motioning at the clothes. "You're free to choose whatever you want."

Ciel got out of the bed and then went to his wardrobe without wasting another glance at the clothes on his bed. "Your suggestions are very nice but I'd like to choose for myself, Aunt Anne."

She turned around to face him, seemingly offended, but then she exited the room quietly. The boy brushed back his hair and sighed. His gaze fell on the portrait hanging right over his bed. 'Escape' had become rather easy to look at in the last few weeks. Sometimes he still felt a little uneasy when looking at it - and he would certainly not think about it hanging above his head at it after a nightmare had woken him up - but it was getting better to perceive it as a piece of art instead of an actual fire that was soon going to consume him.

And besides, he liked the painting.

When Ciel had his clothes on and when his eye patch was in place, he had a quick breakfast when his phone vibrated in his pocket.

_Have fun today_, it read. At first Ciel didn't know who this was, but the number of people that had his number was pitifully low, which was why he figured out who this must be.

_That's the first time you sent me a message._

_An accurate observation._

_Shouldn't you be on your way to an interview?_

_Perhaps. I don't know what to wear._

Ciel, his mouth inches away from a slice of toast, halted.

… _I see what you did here._

He could see Sebastian's smirk through the message. _Well, you're the model, aren't you?_

_Wear something black. Leave me alone now._

_As you wish, my lord. _

Ciel shook his head at the phone and put it back into his trousers, quickly finishing his breakfast when Aunt Anne urged him to hurry.

Bard picked him up at the front door. "Got free from school because of this shooting, eh?" He asked, smiling as he looked at Ciel through the rear mirror.

"It's the last day anyway," Ciel answered, shrugging. "It's not that important."

Bard hummed in thought or agreement. "Mind if I play a CD?"

"Classical music?"

"No, man. Hard rock."

Ciel pulled a face but let him listen to what he liked, even if it made the car ride seem a little bit longer and definitely louder than he'd like at ten a.m.

They were silent until they arrived at the given location; it was the largest Faustus store in England, attracting many people on a daily basis. There were already a few customers looking around when Ciel entered, and he was rather taken aback when an assistant approached him, asking whether he was here for the shooting. Ciel was brought behind the cashiers and into an empty white corridor. "You will get your make-up here" - the man pointed at one door – "and change your clothes here." Another door was pointed at. Ciel went into that room and was greeted by a loud exclamation.

"A _boy_!" Oh goodness, no. Judging from the excitement in the female voice, this promised to be awkward already. "Give me one sec, I'm sure that you will look fabulous in this!"

Before Ciel even caught a glimpse of the woman she was gone again, fetching clothes for him. What he did notice when she returned with her arms full of clothes that she put on the only seat in the room was that she wore suspenders and had a very large bosom.

"I'm Nina Hopkins, and I'm going to make you pretty!"

"Ciel…" the boy offered slowly, feeling the urge to just turn around and go home.

Nina shook his hand and picked out a set of clothes for him. While doing this, she muttered something that suspiciously sounded like 'How I love young boys'.

Shortly after saying that she demanded that Ciel take his clothes off.

Suffice to say that the whole changing affair was rather strange.

When his rags – camouflaged as 'outfit' – were in place and his make-up and hair were to another woman's satisfaction (even though it might be dimmed in her case; she'd tried to get Ciel to take off his eye patch, but the boy had stubbornly refused which hadn't made her too happy), he took a flight of stairs that led him into a lower storey. He stopped though once he caught a glimpse of the room.

It was completely black save for two opposite walls that has been coloured in white. The room was large and empty, likely the size of the ballroom in the Michaelis Estate. The silver-haired photographer and his apprentice – Undertaker and Gregory – were setting up the lights and the camera, two sets, observed by Claude Faustus himself who had apparently let Alois come with him today. The boy was leaning against the man's front, Claude's forearms lightly resting on his ward's shoulders. The pose reminded Ciel of the few minutes he'd spent alone with Sebastian at his birthday. The artist had managed to make him feel all right with being close to him.

Next to Claude and Alois was Maurice who leaned against the white wall and examined his fingernails. When he spotted Ciel, he stared for a while before simply returning to his nails. There was also another model standing next to Gregory as the apprentice was setting up the lamps, talking in very low tones. Ciel had been forced to watch the celebrity news with his aunt often enough to recognize the man as Lawrence Bluer, a well-known Faustus model. He wasn't the main representative of the brand as Edgar was, but he was quite close. While Ciel was wearing green and black _rags_ along with more tatters of clothes bearing a pattern that looked suspiciously like a leopard print, Lawrence was dressed in more elegant yet modestly colourful clothing. Maurice also was wearing a similar style to Lawrence's.

Claude spotted Ciel and the boy realized that he was still standing on the stairs. Way to go, he thought dryly, but then decided that it didn't matter. However, he should perhaps move now that Claude had seen him. Approaching the designer, he settled for a friendly smile. Claude extended an arm past Alois who grinned widely (falsely) at him. He was wearing those awfully short shorts again. Now that it had become even colder, he wore the shorts with stockings that only left a stripe of naked flesh visible.

Shaking the designer's hand, Ciel listened to what was going to happen. Everybody was basically waiting for Edgar who was still having his hair done. It didn't strike Ciel as unfitting; Edgar seemed to be the type to make people wait when he knew that he could afford it.

"Our little nobleman is here~," Undertaker chimed, having set up his camera and the lights, thus having nothing else to do.

Ciel blinked. "Me?"

"Yes, you!" He pointed at him, turning to his apprentice who must have some kind of a sensor for when Undertaker was addressing him. He always looked up in the right moment. Ciel had witnessed this behaviour at the birthday party and it had made him very uncomfortable back then.

Not that he was ever going to show it.

"He looks like a nobleman, doesn't he, Greggie?"

'Greggie' shot a lazy look at Ciel. "I don't know." Which – and even Ciel as an outsider noticed it – could easily be translated as 'I don't care'.

Undertaker either noticed it or didn't, but he giggled, which probably meant that he had understood.

"I hope you haven't been waiting long!" somebody called from the top of the stairs.

"Enter Queen Edgar," Lawrence said from somewhere next to Gregory. Alois snorted. Maurice stared.

Claude's expression didn't change at all. "Please get down here and get to work."

Edgar gracefully came down the steps, making his ragged attire and messy hair look oddly sophisticated. "Oh, you didn't tell me that you were going to be here today, Claude."

"We do have a beginner here."

Edgar nodded, then wanted to greet Alois who glared at him, unseen by Claude, since he was standing behind the teen and giving instructions. The model's smile faltered a little bit while Maurice approached him from the left, just flanking him like he usually did.

Upon looking up from Alois, Edgar's attention was focussed elsewhere. Ciel saw exactly how Edgar's smile widened, lost a great deal of subtlety and became blatantly seductive as he sauntered over to the other bespectacled man in that room. "Lawrence, long time no see. How was Tokyo?"

"Tokyo had a decent lack of Edgar Redmond," Lawrence replied but didn't step aside when Edgar hugged him.

"So you missed me."

Lawrence's arms closed around Edgar's body. "Not at all."

Somebody chuckled as Edgar's jaw dropped in a mockery of shock.

(And Maurice, Ciel noticed, was watching the pair calmly, appearing very composed and eerily quiet. He could be about to implode.)

The two models let go of each other when Claude cleared his throat audibly. "We just don't see each other that often," Edgar said to Ciel as he came to stand next to him. "I need to pay him some attention since he's so love-struck."

Lawrence rolled his eyes. "You're just like your brother."

As Edgar had wrapped an offending arm around Ciel's shoulders, nobody but him noticed the stiffening of the model's body.

"That's not true," Claude drawled. Alois was currently playing with his guardian's hands, and Ciel couldn't help but notice the black nails. Claude and Sebastian did share some things even though they couldn't stand each other. "He doesn't talk nearly as much as the Viscount…" There was a pause in which he just let Alois further inspect his fingers. In the end, he interlaced his with the boy's and that was the end of the inspection. With his free hand, the designer waved the models closer. "A few words about this collection. I hope you have all noticed the theme of this one."

Silence. Everybody looked at their clothes.

"Spring?" Undertaker offered from where he stood as Gregory drank out of his water bottle with a straw.

Edgar cleared his throat. "I think it's hard to find a theme that this" – he pointed at his messy and mostly black attire – "and this" – he waved his hand at Lawrence's more colourful and elegant clothing – "have in common."

Claude carefully pushed Alois aside and grabbed Ciel by the chin, pulling him a little closer and tilting his head back in the same time. The boy's first instinct was to struggle, but when nothing further happened, he held it back. It was just very uncomfortable to be forced to look into Claude's eyes. The man smelled of expensive cologne, mint and newly-bought clothes. "_This_ is the theme of the collection," the designer said.

"The kid?" Maurice asked sceptically.

"No, his eye."

Alois reattached himself to Claude's shoulder, glaring at the other boy. "I don't see anything."

Claude let another uncomfortable moment pass before turning Ciel around so that the rest also had a chance at gawking at him. "It's this look that represents the whole collection. Spring signifies the beginning of new life. I allowed myself to play with this theme. Hence, the boy fits well into this collection." A gloved finger appeared in the corner of Ciel's vision, pointing at his eye. "We're talking about the past and future. About being haunted and healing. About the need to live, the determination. This is a survivor. Be like him." He turned Ciel back, his eyes cutting into the boy's soul. "I'm sure you've been hurt tremendously once, haven't you?"

Ciel remained quiet. Under the eye patch, his eye was itching.

"Well, if you and Edgar would please go to the black wall" – Claude extended a hand and pointed at another set at the other end of the room – "then we can begin."

Gregory followed them while Undertaker called for Maurice and Lawrence to come to him.

When they stood in front of the camera Edgar winked at Ciel who had no idea about what he was supposed to do now. "Well, cutie pie, I hope you're a fast learner…"

**OOO**

After strenuous hours at the set, after four changes of clothes, make-up and hairdo; after hundreds of pictures, Edgar's touches, close nausea and Maurice's glares; after having heard Alois talk for hours as if trying to make up for his wordless few minutes at the beginning of the day, Ciel was finally allowed to leave. He changed back into his own clothes, deciding that he could still wash off the make-up at home. Edgar's arms and hands must have been imprinted on his body by now since they had been on him so often that there was barely a place on his torso that the blond hadn't touched.

It was mildly disturbing.

But looking back, Ciel noticed that while the touches had become way too much, he'd never lost control over himself. There had been no flashbacks at all caused by any kind of contact. He'd done well.

However, he didn't have to do this experience again. He wasn't going to model for anyone again.

Ever.

(Except for Sebastian.)

Upon leaving the changing room and having said his goodbyes to Nina (she kindly enough always turned around when Ciel had changed his clothes, a privilege that other boys and girls/women perhaps didn't have), Ciel decided that he wouldn't call Bard yet. He could still walk around the city, look around a bit, just relax (and buy himself something to eat). But first he had to tend to other needs, namely his bladder, so he quickly sought out the staff's restrooms in the corridors.

He didn't notice the green-eyed model with blond curly hair that hummed in thought and then left the corridor.

When he was washing his hands, Claude entered. He'd taken off his jacket under which he was wearing a regular black (tight-fitting) shirt. He looked at Ciel, then around the small room, and then stood in front of the mirror and started playing with strands of his hair, trying to twist them into the right place.

Ciel was still wondering where Alois had been left. Claude looked as if he'd lost half of his body without Alois clinging to him as if someone's life depended on it.

"You did a good job today," Claude said. "I'm sure we'll have enough useful pictures. Everything has been discussed with your aunt, and you will probably have a certain amount of money added to your account in a few weeks."

Drying his hands, Ciel thanked him.

"Oh, no," Claude said, "I should be thanking you for lending us your face and body."

This sounded wrong on so many levels. Ciel tensed, but Claude didn't seem to notice, he just styled his hair as his gaze crept over to Ciel once in a while. "You're his new muse, aren't you?"

"Whose?"

"My cousin's, of course." Had Claude been any other man, Ciel was sure he would have rolled his eyes.

Ciel remembered that Claude had been one, too. Sebastian and he hadn't hated each other until something happened that perhaps was connected to Claude having been his muse. Something in the air shifted, and when Ciel answered with 'Yes', Claude's eyes darkened. The designer nodded as if he never expected anything else, but a little smile was pulling at his lips, telling Ciel that this was not good.

"I don't know what exactly happened to you in that month," Claude said, leaning his hip against the edge of the sink, "but I'm good at observing people, so I have an adequate guess. You've been showing signs…"

"Signs?" Ciel asked carefully, having this very uncomfortable feeling that things were only going downhill from here. He tried to concentrate on breathing normally -

_(but he's experienced all of this before and he knew where this was leading and this was badsobad -)_

-when Claude advanced on him. Ciel didn't chance a look at the door, feeling that this would give him away immediately.

"You've been broken," Claude said, "and patched together mediocrely. But nevertheless, you let yourself be found by somebody like Sebastian Michaelis, who likes his things broken or breakable. One would think you'd be more careful after whatever abuse you've experienced." He waited here, as if daring Ciel to contradict him, to tell him that his assumptions were wrong, but Ciel was too busy on breathing and controlling any outward signs of anxiety that he couldn't muster up enough concentration to speak properly. "One would think you wouldn't run into the next person to break you all over again. There are a few things about my cousin the world doesn't know about. His muses, for example. He knowingly drove them into suicide. You should be careful."

"Aren't you alive?" Ciel finally asked, his voice threatening to break as Claude inched closer yet.

"I am. But I cannot say the same about the others."

At this Ciel bolted, trying to get to the door and out of the building. A strong hand grabbed him by the wrist and pulled him back and in the next moment, Claude was turning a key in the lock and smiled at him.

"I'm _dying_ to know what's beneath that silken eye patch of yours."

* * *

_Dun dun DUUUUN._

_See ya in the next chapter! =D_

_And don't forget to review, dears! Please don't be worried about leaving a review here; as once stated, I don't bite =D I'd love to know what you think. Tell me how you liked it/whether you liked it; ask me questions if you've got any about the fic. As long as they won't spoil a lot, I will answer them to my best capability. I appreciate and like each review that you send me. Even if you think that you're a bad reviewer or whatever else, it doesn't matter (I'm bad at writing reviews myself XD)._

_That being said, have a wonderful week, dear readers and followers! =D I heart all of you. _


	11. Encounter V

**Warnings: **Implications of past child abuse, some past character deaths, harassment of a minor

**Disclaimer:** Kuro will never be mine since I'm not Yana Toboso.

**Chapter 10**

His heart was beating rapidly, his head was swimming and his breath was coming in short puffs as Ciel took a step back, trying to find another way out of this room. Claude was leaning with his back against the door, calmly watching him with his arms crossed in front of his chest. There was something eerie about the way he held himself right now, how he was just staring and obviously enjoying.

The Michaelis family consisted of demons, didn't it?

Suddenly, Claude had crossed the room. Ciel, of course – predictably – stumbled backwards, trying to stay out of Claude's reach. Whoever knew what the man was up to?

"Don't be afraid," Claude told him, smiling, which wasn't reassuring at all. "I do not intend to hurt you."

That was _exactly_ what they had said back then. And Ciel could feel their hands on him again, how they would hold back his arms, how they would laugh into his ear, and it felt so real that the moment that Claude did touch him, he lashed out.

There was a brief struggle, a very brief one, for despite the adrenaline rushing through his body, Ciel was too weak to stand up against Claude who had his hands pinned above his head in no time. The boy contemplated kicking at the man, but their bodies were too close to lash out. Ciel could feel the coldness of the wall behind him seeping into the fabric of his clothes as Claude grasped his chin with his free hand, forcing their gazes to lock. Ciel gritted his teeth, writhing and trying to get more space.

"I'm not going to hurt you," Claude murmured, and his hand slid under the eye patch, a finger tracing the line of his eye socket. Ciel wanted to say no, wanted to do _something_, but he couldn't even shake his head. "I just wish to…" The hand left his skin. Along with the eye patch.

And then…

Silence.

Ciel kept his eyes firmly shut as Claude turned his head to the right and the left, examining the network of scars that decorated his skin. He didn't want to know what other people thought of this sight. Fingers traced the disgusting scars with equally disgusting curiosity. The boy felt his stomach lurch but he sat through it, refusing to show how much this affected him. Claude's hipbone was digging into his stomach, one leg aligned between Ciel's, and the man's cool breath – oddly fresh, Ciel wouldn't have been surprised if it had smelled rotten and nauseating – washed over him.

It was terrible. Being looked at with this perverse interest, being held captured with no possibilities to escape until it was finally over… Ciel had experienced it before. He didn't like the way Claude's fingers caressed his skin, to him it implied that worse things would happen very soon. But on the other hand, he just couldn't scream: It was as if somebody was pressing against his throat, effectively keeping him from making any sound at all.

When Claude released him, Ciel (embarrassingly) slid down the wall, having no support whatsoever. He avoided eye contact and Claude didn't seem inclined to look at him anymore as he promptly turned around and opened the door again. He left the silken eye patch by the sinks and was gone.

Ciel sat there for what felt like a very long time, listening to his fast heartbeat as his breathing evened out. He couldn't do anything against his trembling hands, so he laid them in his lap and waited a little more. As soon as his legs didn't feel that weak anymore, he would get up and out of this place and never come back and never talk to Claude again. Whatever Alois found so great about him Ciel didn't understand. He didn't even know why he had respected the man for what he had achieved at his young age. This one was obviously not quite all right.

But that didn't matter now, didn't it?

Ciel fished his phone from his pocket and quickly found out that he couldn't press numbers properly with his hands trembling that badly. He wanted to curse but didn't. He put the phone back. Then he rested his head against the wall.

After a few more measured breaths, he got up.

The door opened.

Ciel immediately shrunk back against the wall. It just was a reflex, but an unnecessary one, as the quirky silver-haired man entered the room, curiously looking around. "You're still here? I thought you left an hour ago."

"An hour?" Ciel repeated, and oh, this was bad. An _hour_.

"Well, almost an hour, at least." Undertaker shrugged, but his eyes were piercing and his stance spoke of alertness. "What happened here?"

Ciel blinked. "Nothing."

Undertaker picked up the silken eye patch from the sink and approached Ciel slowly. "I think he's done that before. Wouldn't put it past him. Did he hurt you?"

Ciel shook his head. When he moved to grab the eye patch, Undertaker held it out of his reach. "Allow me to do it," he said. "We'd be standing here for hours if I let you tie it."

Feeling his cheeks flush, Ciel pushed himself off of the wall and held still as Undertaker tied the silken accessory at the back of his head. He was very sure that Undertaker had seen the mangled and disgusting eye, yet he wouldn't comment on it. He didn't even seem repulsed in the slightest. Ciel was honestly surprised at that for he himself didn't like the sight of the boy's right eye (too many memories). He also felt a wave of gratitude at the mortician's neutral behaviour towards it.

"Do you want me to drive you home?" Undertaker asked then. The smile had left his face a long time ago.

"No," Ciel said. "I can't go home like this." Aunt Anne would annoy him with questions half the night until she'd grow tired of asking , settling for offended and then wondering whether it had been her who'd done something wrong. Ciel didn't want to endure this right now. He couldn't tell her about anything, since she'd think that if he had a small relapse, she'd need to make a double effort to 'heal' him. Since she'd grown tired of Ciel's slow rehabilitation, she was very adamant on making him heal the hard way.

"But you're coming with me?" Undertaker grinned at him. "I can bring you to Sebastian, if you want. You can calm down there for sure. I'd suggest relaxing in a coffin, but not many families have spare coffins left in their cellars, do they now?"

Claude's voice echoed in his head, claiming that Sebastian had driven his muses into suicide. Knowingly. Wasn't that some kind of murder, too? Ciel didn't know what to think of that. He didn't want to go to Sebastian. Yet again, Sebastian was the only person who knew more than anybody else. Ciel had told him about this… this man outside, somewhere outside. He hadn't mentioned that the possibility was high that this man would come back one day, that he would come back for Ciel and take him away. But he guessed Sebastian had understood. Sebastian always understood.

Maybe this was what scared Ciel.

"Lead the way," Ciel answered. "But I should announce my visit first."

Undertaker blinked. He was obviously thinking in two directions now. Considering that Ciel had just been attacked, the boy hoped that the photographer understood the mild antagonism towards him. Ciel was naturally sceptic. Getting into a car with a stranger after having been harassed was as bad as _being_ harassed in a men's restroom.

"Sure," he finally said, accepting the phone Ciel offered and calling Sebastian. Ciel had already saved the number in his contacts this morning. There was a deep voice at the other line and Ciel felt himself exhaling when Undertaker's features grew amused again, when his raspy voice called Sebastian's name. "May I drop your vict- _muse_ at your house? There's been a little… event."

Ciel didn't understand Sebastian's answer, but Undertaker gave him back his phone and smiled. "Let's go, dear."

They left the building to go to the parking garage across the road. Before this could happen, though, Ciel caught a glimpse of Edgar and Maurice in the back alley. Maurice was leaning against the wall of the Faustus store while Edgar was only a few inches in front of him, speaking in very low tones.

Maurice seemed worried. Edgar, too.

Then the older model took the younger one's hand and interlaced their fingers. He was grinning when they exited the alley, and Maurice seemed as if in trance. Then he grasped the older model's hand tighter and grinned smugly. Edgar noticed that Ciel had been looking at them. For a short moment, his eyes narrowed, but then he waved friendly at him.

Ciel nodded curtly and decided that he had other things to worry about.

He hadn't missed the photographer's slip earlier. In Undertaker's car where the radio was switched off, Ciel pondered on this for approximately five minutes. If Undertaker would use the word 'victim' on him, no matter whether it was meant as a kind of nickname or as the very thing that it implied, didn't this in turn mean that he knew about Sebastian's muses? The boy's hands were still trembling a little, and his heart was calming down now, even if it would never be quite calm until Undertaker actually let him out at Sebastian's mansion. It was a beginning, he guessed, ran a hand over his face and frowned at the make-up that he hadn't washed off yet now covering his digits.

"Mr Faustus told me that Sebastian isn't innocent."

"Concerning what?" Undertaker asked.

"His muses. Is there something I should know? They all died, didn't they?"

"They did; went crazy and committed suicide. Except for Claude and Ash Landers."

"What does Sebastian have to say about this?"

Undertaker brushed back his too-long fringe and shrugged. "Not much. But you should ask him about it if you want to know more."

"You're aware of what is and has been happening," Ciel said pointedly.

Shaking his head lightly, Undertaker giggled. "I only know what has happened. I'm not informed about what's happening right now… or _how_ it is happening for that matter…"

"How many more know of those muses' deaths?"

A pause. "Some of us do, some of us don't. Take Claude's models, for example, or Alois. Or Sebastian's cousin, William. Take the rest of the world. Your family. Many don't know. The others do."

The gate to Sebastian's grounds was open. Ciel didn't ask any more questions and Undertaker didn't offer anything; they sat in silence until the car came to a halt in front of the main door. Sebastian immediately opened the door as Ciel got out of the car, and before he could blink, strong arms were wrapped around him. He was pulled against the older man's chest and a scent that was growing quite familiar these days washed over him. He couldn't allow himself to relax, though, feeling this little seed of doubt that had been planted into the back of his head. He would have to ask Sebastian himself. But Undertaker had already mentioned that some of people knew about this. Ciel could basically ask anyone in Sebastian's surroundings: Gregory, Ronald, this redhead that had seemed quite involved in the group, maybe even Ash Landers himself… according to the photographer, they would all tell him the same thing. But Ciel wanted to hear it from Sebastian before he would think of his next move.

"Don't touch me," he muttered into the fabric of Sebastian's pullover. It was dark already and it had begun to snow again. The temperatures must be dropping by the minute.

"Are you alright?" Sebastian asked.

"If you _let me go_, yes."

Sebastian stepped back and dropped one arm but rested a hand on Ciel's left shoulder as if wanting to make sure the boy wouldn't run away. It was slightly disconcerting, Ciel realized. Not comforting at all. "What happened?" he asked, but Ciel quickly realized that it was Undertaker at whom the question was directed.

"Claude happened," the silver-haired man told him. "I don't know what he did, but he did _something_, didn't he?"

Sebastian's grip tightened around Ciel's shoulder. "Thank you, Undertaker."

"You're welcome, pal~… And Ciel?"

The boy turned around, waiting.

"You can always come visit me, okay? Sebastian's friends are my friends. I've got good tea and nice coffins, depending on what you need during your visit."

Ciel stared as Undertaker giggled. That must have been one of the weirdest and cruellest jokes he'd ever heard, especially when considering their conversation in the car. It was quite untimely and had probably told Sebastian something, too, since the man's hand tightened even further.

"I'll consider the offer," Ciel said.

"Good evening, then. I need to pick up Gregory before he throws a hissy fit."

"Gregory doesn't do hissy fits," Sebastian reminded him.

"He doesn't do _anything_, in fact." Undertaker shrugged, waved, and started his car again.

The artist and the musician were alone now.

When the vehicle had disappeared, Ciel opened his mouth. "You're hurting me." He said it as calmly as possible.

The hand immediately left his shoulder. "I'm sorry." A pause. Ciel didn't turn around. "Do you want to come in and tell me what happened? I'll make some tea for the two of us and you can choose which room you want to be in."

"The green living-room," Ciel said. "I'll be waiting there."

Sebastian looked at him with a small downturn of his lips, nodded and went into the house. Ciel followed him inside, took off his shoes and left his coat there; then he went to the aforementioned room. It had this oppressing atmosphere to it. Not that Ciel liked it, but he thought there was a reason why Sebastian didn't like this room too much. Before he got in, he caught a glimpse of two women in black dresses with aprons that were idly chattering while dusting the picture frames. He'd never seen any maids in Sebastian's house before, but they could have been around without Ciel noticing. Or they just weren't here every day. Either way, one of them – she was wearing a thick pair of glasses, had pink hair and had just managed to drop a painting – noticed Ciel. She smiled and waved. The boy blinked, inclined his head and entered the living-room quietly.

In the room's appendix, he found the portraits of his… predecessors lying on a small table by the windows. Ciel took them and went to the main room, spreading them out on the floor. Six pairs of eyes looked back at him, every pair conveying different messages. Sebastian must have been a talented artist from early on (just like Ciel had been a talented musician), for even his semi-realistic portrait of this Beast person told Ciel something about her character. It was as if Sebastian had trapped their personalities in their portraits, as if he'd turned them inside out to spread all they had over his paintings and drawings. Beast's eyes sparkled as if Ciel was looking into a real pair. Claude's mouth was trapped in a faint smile as he adjusted his glasses, a young boy just about Ciel's age that showed distinctively more warmth than his older self, but not too much to be a completely other person. There was a crest drawn into the corner on the drawing, right above Sebastian's elegant signature. The same thing could also be seen on Beast's portrait. From his research on Sebastian, Ciel recognized this as the Michaelis' family crest. There must have been a certain sense for family back then, at least between the three of them. And while Beast was gone and Sebastian disinherited… while there seemed to be much hate between the artist and the designer right now, they were still a family, weren't they? Ciel had grown up in a loving family, he didn't even understand why relatives would hunt each other down just for the mere purpose of hierarchy among them, why they would hire assassins, how they would want to lead, oppress and reign over each other. How they would think of a dead relative as another rival down.

Claude's smile, however small and faint, was sincere. Sebastian had captured that well.

Sebastian's art had rapidly improved. Claude's portrait was already realistic, but the next one might as well be a photograph. Ciel looked at the next two people without recognizing them, at the dates on which the portraits had been drawn. It disturbed him that those people who seemed so alive would even contemplate the idea of suicide.

The fifth portrait showed Ash Landers, regal and beautiful in his very own way, somewhat cocky, if Ciel looked closely, but very controlled and calculating. He looked as if he was about to laugh, considering the way his eyes were faintly crinkled, dancing with amusement. Ciel looked at the picture and almost knew who Ash was (had been); such was Sebastian's art.

And then the boy remembered the other portrait of Ash.

'_He knowingly drove them into suicide.'_

The famous Ash Landers, with brittle hair, thin and tired and weary, as if someone had sucked the life out of him, as if something was shrivelling inside him. (Sebastian was a little bit too good at capturing this.) This was pain and exhaustion, this must be Ash at his lowest.

Somebody who might contemplate suicide.

And Sebastian had drawn him, with much effort it seemed, on a sheet of paper larger than the one with a good-natured Ash on it.

The woman on the portrait after Ash was also dead, wasn't she?

'_You should be careful.'_

The door opened and Ciel looked up from the drawings as Sebastian entered with two cups in his hands. The artist put the cups on the coffee table and sat down on a chair facing Ciel who was still sitting on the floor and staring. Sebastian's gaze flickered to the portraits. "It seems as if you should start," he finally said. "With your questions, that is."

"Did Beast fall or did she throw herself down the stairs?"

Sebastian frowned mildly. "I see Claude has told you something." He shook his head. "I wouldn't know; I wasn't there at that time. The official record claims that she fell."

Ciel pondered this for a second. "Tell me about them," he demanded, rather ordered, and Sebastian hesitated before he got up and knelt down next to the boy in front of the portraits.

"You might think differently of me."

"Believe me when I say that whatever little trust I had for you has vanished right now. You refused to tell me about your muses the last time I asked you, which means a lot now that Claude told me something about their deaths. Don't lie to me. I'm the future head of the Phantomhive family and the owner of its companies. I have the means to ruin you."

Sebastian appeared dead serious as well. Either he understood that Ciel wasn't joking or… He seemed pensive, calculating. Was he planning to do something? Ciel wished he could look into his head.

Finally Sebastian nodded in the direction of his bespectacled cousin. "You should know that he's just angry because I switched muses after four months. Had a nervous breakdown before that and then decided that a knife might look good in my chest when my father expressed that he would switch heirs if I refused to change my lifestyle. The sons and daughters closest to the inner circle started regarding each other as enemies. I've even got a scar now. Do you wish to see it?"

Ciel didn't answer but Sebastian lifted his pullover and presented his right side to the boy. A horizontal, silvery scar could be seen above the man's waist. The knife must have sliced along the rib underneath the skin.

Ciel's fingers itched to touch it.

Sebastian pulled his pullover down and pointed at the next portrait. "I called her Freckles. She came from the country side into the city and I found her in a café, alone. I liked her energy, so I started drawing her." He put her portrait over Claude's. "Found her uncle's gun."

Ciel didn't say anything.

"Joker," Sebastian continued, pointing at the grinning adolescent, "was also very interesting, very inspiring. A year after I started drawing him, he had changed from the sympathetic person he had been into a depressed, depending and not very harmless individual." He put the portrait over Freckles'. "Ran in front of a car.

Ash Landers. Inspired me for four years. Then his sister died and we… lost contact."

Ciel's eyes focused on the last one. "And she was…?"

"Irene Diaz, a very talented singer." Sebastian smiled faintly. "She would have had a wonderful career but-"

"You found her," Ciel interrupted.

Sebastian hesitated, as if thinking about this for the first time. "You know, Undertaker said the same thing. But no, she drowned herself six months after we met." He turned to the boy. "Ciel Phantomhive. A talented musician of only thirteen years. It's a shame that he keeps looking back instead of walking with his eyes set on what is happening right now. He's been my muse for… a month?... and he's still sane, isn't he?"

"I wouldn't call myself sane," Ciel said at length.

"That's a healthy attitude. No one is these days."

Ciel rolled his eyes. He wasn't going to dwell on this. "What did you do to them?"

"The muses? Nothing. I just drew them. We shouldn't be blaming me for their suicides, some of them had a lot of things to cope with when I found them."

Ciel had noticed the scar tissue beneath Freckles' fringe. Irene's hesitancy. Joker's fake smile. (Sebastian was a _good_ artist.) "Do you have a preference for broken things?"

"I could." Sebastian put away the portraits. "Now, what do you think?"

"I think that Claude has made me a sceptic, but I wonder why I should listen to him. I want my own evidence." Ciel raised his chin. "I shall stay around."

Sebastian bowed. "My lord is too generous."

"Hush and hand me the tea, servant."

The artist seemed baffled for a split second – enough to make Ciel feel smug – and then placed a cup in his hands. Ciel preferred not getting up right now, as his legs were feeling weak again, and the last thing he needed today was to fall over.

"So, apart from Claude trying to cut off my flow of inspiration, what else happened?" Now that the portraits were out of the way, Sebastian sat down in front of Ciel, also on the floor.

The boy tried to stare him down, but Sebastian would have none of it. In the end it was Ciel who broke eye contact to find the contents of his cup terribly interesting.

"You can tell me, you know." Sebastian sounded sincere. So sincere.

"I don't trust you," Ciel muttered.

"That's okay."

The boy looked up. "Is it?"

Sebastian nodded. "But I have the feeling that this was an indirect attack on me, so you need to tell me what he did."

Recalling Claude's words, Ciel stared dumbly at the man in front of him. It made so much sense for Claude to indirectly attack Sebastian instead of just being interested in Ciel's right eye. By inflicting damage on him Claude had wanted to inflict damage on Sebastian.

"He cornered me and took off my eye patch," Ciel answered.

Something sparkled in Sebastian's eyes.

Interest.

Not him, too.

"Did he do anything… else?"

"Isn't that enough?" Ciel only noticed that his voice had risen when the artist arched an eyebrow. "I'm not here to satisfy your revolting curiosity. Find some other broken toy, I'm not going to indulge you." He set the cup down and got up. His hands were shaking again. He hated them sometimes.

Before he could reach the door, though, Sebastian caught him by the wrist, gently, so that Ciel would be able to go if he wished.

And Ciel, acting against every instinct, stayed.

"I'm sorry if it came out the wrong way," Sebastian said. "I didn't mean to…."

"Just keep quiet, will you?" Ciel muttered grumpily, madder at himself than at Sebastian who was just annoying now without being able to afford it. "And let me go."

Sebastian's hand uncurled. "You're trembling."

"I'm not."

"Alright. You aren't."

Ciel sneered at him, brushed past the older man and got his cup. This time, he flopped down on a chair beside the coffee table.

He wasn't going to initiate a conversation. And for a very long while, Sebastian didn't say anything, either. But then the artist spoke up, and Ciel wished he could just be quiet again.

"So Claude saw your eye?"

"I kept it shut, but that's bad enough." Ciel looked up from his cup. "Why? Do you want to see it, too?"

Sebastian remained quiet, his eyes calculating.

"You do, don't you? There's no shame in admitting it. Everybody wants to know what I hide as if it's their business." He crossed his legs and turned the now empty cup in his hands. "People are curious about other people's bad experiences." With a wry smile pulling at his lips, he looked at Sebastian. "Are you also going to force me?"

"Force you?" Sebastian regarded him as if he was contemplating it, but then shook his head. "No, I won't force you to do anything. You are always free to stay or leave. Usually, you are also free to tell me things if you want to, except for this one time. You are allowed to do what you deem appropriate in my house, and if you want to show me your eye one day, then that's okay. If not, that's just as well."

Ciel's first reaction to this was surprise. The second was this tiny voice that immediately sowed doubt into Ciel's head. He pinched the bridge of his nose. This day had been way too long.

As if on cue, his cell phone vibrated in his pocket. When he answered the call, his aunt was loudly asking where he was, whether something had happened, _why_ wasn't he at home when the shooting had ended a few hours ago? Ciel blinked slowly, trying to come up with a valid excuse.

"I'm at Soma's," he said, "didn't you get my message?"

"_Of course I didn't! I was worried, Ciel, you hear me? _Worried_. You also know that I always respond to your messages. You should have sent it again."_

"I'm very sorry aunt Anne."

"_Apology accepted, sweetie. Are you coming home?"_

"I…" Ciel needed to think this through quickly. He wasn't quite eager to go home and have his aunt pester him with her questions. He just wanted a quiet night, and he wouldn't get it at his own house.

(Or at Soma's, for that matter…)

"I'm sleeping at Soma's, if you don't mind," he said. Now he would have to tell his friend that he was coming over. He wouldn't get any sleep for a while, he just knew it.

"_Of course I don't! It's great that you're sleeping at other people's houses again, Ciel. This is progress, I tell you. You haven't slept at anybody's place since three years ago, it's about time that you do."_

Ciel almost grimaced at this. "Sure, Aunt Anne."

"_Should Bard bring anything over?"_

"Oh, no, I can borrow some clothes from Soma."

"… _If you say so. Goodnight, then, sweetie."_

"Goodnight."

And _click_, she was gone.

Ciel exhaled and sunk into the chair.

"Should I bring you to this Soma?" Sebastian asked.

Ciel waved. "Not now."

"It's rather late. If you wait longer, he might not let you in at all." Sebastian smiled at him. "How about you sleep here?"

This certainly caught Ciel's attention. "Are you, a stranger, offering that I sleep at your place?"

"So, we're still on a stranger basis?" Sebastian retorted almost playfully. "I wasn't aware. I thought telling you about my muses' unfortunate deaths, about my family history and having you in my house almost every day, meeting my acquaintances and getting to know you would make me less of a stranger."

Ciel rolled his eyes.

"You're just being cautious, aren't you?" Sebastian got up. "It's alright. Let me bring you to your friend."

At the mention of 'friend', Ciel thought this over again. Sebastian's company was much more pleasant so long as they weren't talking about certain subjects, and Ciel was sure that he would sleep well in this house. He would tell Soma to keep his cover, and if Sebastian tried anything, his friend would know.

Not that he needed to fear anything here, he told himself, including this mansion's owner, but Ciel preferred being on the safe side. Writing a message to Soma in which he explained that he was 'sleeping over', Ciel accepted Sebastian's offer. "I'm going to choose my own guest room, though."

Sebastian halted. Then a smirk grew on his lips. "Of course. Let me show you my nicest rooms. I'll lend you something to sleep in."

Ciel nodded, content with Sebastian's ability to think of what was needed. "Don't try anything funny," he warned him.

"If I had wanted to ever try anything 'funny'," Sebastian said, "I would have done so a while ago, don't you think? I'd like to point out that I don't do anything without consent. Believe me, I'm not going to do anything."

Ciel thought he did believe him.

* * *

_So, there's going to be a sleep over! Isn't that great? _

_Tell me how you liked this chapter; leave a review :) _

_Until next week!_


	12. Encounter VI

**Chapter 11**

Sleep was hard to come by.

Sebastian lay awake in his bed, staring at the ceiling and once in a while at his digital clock to see how much time he'd already wasted on trying to fall asleep.

Four o'clock and he was still awake.

Sebastian got up, matted his hair and left his room. Maybe a little bit of wandering around would do him some good. Sometimes it did. Sometimes… not so much.

The Michaelis estate was eerily beautiful at night. When Sebastian went down to the entrance hall, his parents looked at him with stern expressions. He stood there for a while, wondering what they would think of him now, of their son who hadn't been their son the moment he'd took a pencil to a sheet of paper. What they would say if they could see their portraits, drawn from memory, welcoming every guest with serious looks.

The ruffling of clothes called for his attention. He lifted his gaze and there, at the top of the staircase, stood Ciel Phantomhive with his messy hair and wearing a t-shirt from Sebastian that looked like a nightdress on him. "Did I wake you up?" the artist asked.

"How would you achieve that? I'm three rooms away from yours." Ciel rolled his visible eye. He had put on his eye patch, which Sebastian found very unfortunate. "How come you're awake?"

"Insomnia," Sebastian said. "You?"

Ciel was silent for a long time. "Nightmares."

Sebastian nodded. "Is there something I can do for you?"

"To be frank, I didn't expect you to be an insomniac," Ciel answered as if annoyed.

"I never planned to become one." Sebastian shrugged. "It happens. And if my presence distracts you, I can just go to another part of the mansion."

"This is _your_ stupid house," Ciel retorted. "Be wherever you want."

"What if I want to be around you?" Sebastian asked. "Make sure the nightmares don't haunt you?"

Ciel raised an eyebrow. "Are you making fun of me?"

"I wouldn't dream of it. I'm perfectly serious, of course." He sat down by the foot of the steps.

Ciel didn't move. "I never really looked at those statues." He was probably talking about the two miniature-Irenes that were standing in both corners of the hall.

Turning around to look up at the boy, Sebastian cocked his head to the side. "How about you come down here?"

Ciel didn't move at first. Then he sighed, as if he was humouring an old lady and came to sit next to him. Sebastian smirked as the boy pulled at the hem of the too-large shirt, covering his thighs with a small blush on his cheeks. He was still here, at night in Sebastian's house, right after he'd been told about his predecessors. But since there was no evidence against Sebastian – and since Sebastian did believe in coincidence – there was no reason for Ciel to distrust him any more than he had done before hearing from the other muses. Sebastian was quite sure of that.

They ended up talking until Ciel suppressed a tired yawn an hour later. Sebastian promptly lifted him bridal style, against which the boy struggled at first. When he realized that Sebastian wasn't going to put him down, he ceased his efforts, blushed and let Sebastian carry him. "Nobody will hear of this," he warned the man sternly.

The artist rolled his eyes playfully. "Of course not." He laid the boy on the bed and watched as Ciel moved under the covers.

"It'll be Christmas soon," Ciel said. The artist felt the boy's gaze on him and understood that it was his time to speak.

"My acquaintances will probably molest me that day," he said. "And everybody will stay without presents… or food, for that matter, because nobody bothered cooking and everybody thinks that their presence is the best present to the others."

Ciel, hidden beneath the covers, snorted softly. "I wonder how you came across such people."

"You're not the only one." Sebastian huffed at the thought of a full house, but his exasperation wasn't real. "I just hope they'll forget that I have a mansion on Christmas."

"No chance."

"I know." He cocked his head to the side. "You're welcome to stop by."

"I'll think about it." Ciel lazily lifted his head. "Now get out or are you adamant on drooling over me as I sleep?"

Sebastian grinned. "I might be." He caught the pillow thrown at him.

"I'm taking back my words. You and your friends are made for each other."

"They're acquaintances," Sebastian corrected as he left the room. He closed the door behind him, stopped and then smiled.

**OOO**

Three days later, on December 25th, the doorbell rang at eleven a.m.

Sebastian didn't open the door, as he was currently drawing, but since it must be Undertaker, he soon enough heard voices in the hallway. Somebody sang a pop song when something more… traditional would have been appropriate. Setting down the pastel colours, Sebastian took a deep breath before he opened the door to his studio.

Soon enough, two arms wrapped around him, the force with which the body collided with his nearly knocking him off his feet.

"Oh, Sebby! How I have missed you! Did you miss me?"

"No," Sebastian said flatly, turning his head so that Grell at least wouldn't kiss his lips. "Undertaker, I told you I don't want him in my house."

"But that just makes him want to visit you more. And how can I refuse him when he's like that?" The photographer cackled as Sebastian pried Grell's hands away. "Come, Gregory, let's see what's in Sebastian's fridge. You want anything, dear?"

"Oh, no. I've got what I need." Grell was still cuddling Sebastian.

The artist pushed him away. "Aren't you dating my cousin?"

"Poor guy's undecided," Grell answered. "And I don't like to wait. You see, it's actually a shame that the two of you are related to each other. We'd make such a handsome threesome couple."

Horrified at the mere notion, Sebastian stared at the redhead. "Is that your idea of Christmas? Making it unpleasant for me?" he called at Undertaker's back, pointing to Grell.

The photographer turned around, grinning. "Since you - strictly speaking - never cared for Christmas, I figured I should add my own ideas."

As always, Sebastian ended up in the kitchen, serving tea and baking biscuits as Grell colourfully described how Sebastian would look like wearing nothing but an apron.

This even moved Gregory: He grimaced.

Perhaps in sympathy.

But while Grell was annoying, he definitely had a fine opinion of Sebastian's naked body.

By the time the tea and biscuits were finished, Ronald was standing in front of the door, grinning as he snatched a chocolate biscuit from Sebastian's tray and wishing him a merry Christmas. He was carrying a box with holes under his arm, seeming way too excited for Sebastian's taste.

When they were seated in the cream-coloured saloon, that box _mewed_.

Sebastian blinked at it, freezing in his tracks.

Ronald had heard it, too, and he brought his palm to his forehead. "That's an impatient one."

Confused, but hopeful, Sebastian set down his teacup, ignoring Undertaker's sniggering, Grell's adoring sounds and Gregory's… well, silence, and then accepted the box from a beaming Ronald. When he lifted the lid, a small black cat came into view, mewing again. Sebastian's breath hitched. He set the box on his lap and lifted the cat out of its confinement, carefully cradling it in his arms.

"She only reacts to the name Ran," Undertaker said while sipping his tea. The cat mewed again. "But I think it works."

Yes it worked. Sebastian loved this little beauty already.

"We've also got everything else you'll need for the cat in Undie's car," Grell said. "I personally would have taken a red cat to match my hair."

"There are no cats as red as that," Gregory pointed out.

"I'm sure there are. If not, I'd dye their fur."

Pressing his new cohabitant a little closer to his body, Sebastian frowned at the actor. Then he let Ran explore the room, wondering where he would place which item. "Thank you," he said. "Unfortunately, I don't have anything for you."

"It's to be expected." Ronald waved his hand. "We never gave each other presents. Just do it next year."

"For now…" Undertaker pointed at the tray where the biscuits would have been, had they not eaten them all. "You should bake us a cake."

"Back to the kitchen with you!" Ronald said n a playful tone, which earned him a glare nonetheless.

"Know your place," Gregory added blandly, causing Grell to choke on his tea.

Too stunned to react to _that_, Sebastian didn't even attempt to calm down his hysterically laughing friends.

**OOO**

By noon, Ronald had found the room with the stereo in it.

Somewhere between four and five o'clock, and after they had decided only have chilled tea with gin from now on, he decided that Sebastian's taste in music was boring.

"Shouldn't musicians be open for different kinds of music?" Undertaker asked, munching on a piece of cake.

"I was open for this stuff," Ronald said, shrugging. "And I found out that I didn't like it." He waved the CD around, making Sebastian scowl at him. Upon seeing his friends' expression, Ronald immediately stopped and ducked his head. "Also, I'm an actor and then a musician."

Grell snatched it from between his fingers and took a look at the title and composer. "It's Brahms." He raised an eyebrow, as if waiting for Ronald to embarrass himself.

Ronald appeared as if he hadn't even heard of the composer. "Well, I don't like the fellow. Haven't you got any jazz in here?"

Sebastian shook his head. When he drew while listening to music, he found that jazz was too distracting, so of course he didn't have it in his house.

Ronald rolled his eyes.

The doorbell rang again. Sebastian sighed. "I hope none of you invited Claude."

"Wouldn't dream of it," Undertaker said, and his tone implied that he'd do that at the next chance he got.

The artist picked up Ran who purred contentedly as he brushed his hand over her soft fur, delighting in the attention. When he opened the door, Ciel was standing outside. Behind him, the black family car drove away. Ciel did a double-take at the cat before looking at Sebastian, carefully hidden incomprehension and distaste on his face. "You've got a cat now."

"Isn't she beautiful? Her name is Ran."

The boy frowned. "I'm more of a dog person."

Sebastian shrugged. "Well, I can't change anything about that. Would you like to come in?"

"That's why I'm here. Merry Christmas."

And oh, did Ciel look _merry_…

Sebastian let the boy come in and put Ran back on the floor, leaving her to explore the rest of the mansion. He and his acquaintances had already brought all the things that Ran would need (and maybe not need) in the house, and Sebastian couldn't help but feel stupidly delighted at the fact that he had a cat again.

A cd was presented to him. Sebastian cautiously took it. "What's that?"

"Do you remember that piece I wrote?" Ciel asked.

"I do. 'Encounter', I assume?"

Ciel nodded. "A friend of my aunt has a studio and can play the piano. That's the result. I thought you might be interested in how it sounds like now that it's finished."

Sebastian smiled. "Sure. I'll listen to it right away."

Ciel looked past him.

When the artist turned around, Undertaker and the rest were gathered by the twin staircases, watching them as if they were a movie. Sebastian had this very strange feeling that he'd been caught while doing something he normally didn't or shouldn't do. There was a moment of perfectly awkward silence…

"Huh." Undertaker's shoulders started shaking with repressed laughter. "Good to see you, little Phantomhive. We hope you don't mind our presence."

Ronald, looking smug for a reason Sebastian couldn't understand, was the first to go back to where they'd come from, hands behind his head, grinning from ear to ear. "Looks like Sebastian might dump you, Grell."

The redhead appeared to be shocked. "Fear not. I shall fight for our love!"

Even Gregory rolled his eyes at that.

Sebastian decided that whatever they thought they had seen didn't matter much. He waited for Ciel to hang up his coat, but the boy shoved it into the artist's hands, his cheeks a faint shade of pink (surely from the cold outside), and headed for the stairs wearing white socks. It was about time that Sebastian provided a pair of house shoes for the boy. After having put away the coat, he closed his fingers a little tighter around the CD cover. They hadn't seen each other since Ciel had left the mansion after the sleep over, early in the morning and right after a short shower and breakfast. As soon as his hair had been dry, he had called his friend Soma who had sounded happy at ten o'clock in the morning. Ciel and Sebastian had glanced at each other, for even the artist had heard the elated exclamations of joy from the other line. And they quickly found out that they both hated mornings.

Sebastian had sat there with his mug of coffee while he had prepared a cup of Earl Grey for Ciel (he'd started buying it regularly now: Darjeeling and Earl Grey, only the finest), reading the newspaper while the boy was eating. He remembered that there had been an article about William having opened another hotel in some mega city. New York, if he wasn't mistaken, or Washington, Atlanta or Tokyo.

So much for reading the newspaper regularly.

Sebastian could safely say that Ciel hadn't behaved any differently, except for being extra-grumpy since he'd had less hours of sleep than he was used to. The possibility that the boy had enjoyed his stay was high. When Sebastian had dropped him off in front of Soma's house (a normal middle-class house only two or three Underground stations away from the inner city), Ciel had looked at him for a second and dryly remarked, "We should plan this through the next time. I would prefer a change of clothes," and then had shut the car door, leaving Sebastian in front of the steering wheel, dumbfounded for only a second, before a content smile had split his face in half.

A polite cough.

Sebastian blinked and was back in the entrance hall, his mother staring at him almost disapprovingly from the wall between the twin staircases.

"Something wrong, Mr Michaelis?" Ciel asked.

"Not at all," Sebastian answered smoothly, and to be honest, there really wasn't anything wrong. His acquaintances were as annoying as they always were. But that was what they must be there for, so Sebastian couldn't complain. And now Ciel was there, which just promised to make the day nicer than before. The artist swiftly climbed up the stairs, leading Ciel to where the others were. Surprisingly, as Sebastian played the CD, he saw Ciel sit down next to Undertaker, who had patted the empty space next to him in invitation and the boy didn't mind when Undertaker leaned down and whispered something into his ear. He actually smirked. He shook hands with Gregory and, a little more reluctant, perhaps because he hadn't seen them more than once before, the hands of Grell and Ronald.

Sebastian had already heard the beginning of 'Encounter', and while he was sitting down next to Ciel, amused by his acquaintances' sudden silence, he noticed how the boy had changed nothing about the intertwining melodies they had played together two weeks ago. It was a calm composition, gloomy and reserved. Somewhere, it sounded even dangerous, something that one wouldn't expect at the beginning, but the 'danger' became more and more obvious the closer the end got. And then there were runs on the piano's part, growing gradually louder, gradually becoming thundering, outplaying the piano in volume –

And, very suddenly,

… silence.

Then a quiet _pizzicato_, a fading melody on the piano's part, then the violin came to its own silent conclusion -

And the encounter was over.

Sebastian took a deep breath and wasn't aware that he'd held his breath for the last few seconds.

"Who composed this this?" Ronald asked, the first to have collected himself (after Gregory, but Gregory was a man of few words, so naturally, he wouldn't ask any questions).

"Ciel," Sebastian replied.

"Man, you're awesome!" Ronald grinned. "One day, we should sit together and do this together." He grinned at Sebastian. "This guy's a little Mozart."

Ciel didn't answer.

"All of your muses were quite special," Undertaker began at length, cutting right into the praise from Grell and Ronald and making Ciel look up. Sebastian felt like gagging the photographer right away. Undertaker smiled at Sebastian over Ciel's head. "All of them had a great artistic talent themselves and were already working on becoming well-known. Such a shame that only… one of them" – here, Undertaker, still smiling, gave him that look: _I know about Ash, make no mistake_; Sebastian's blood ran cold for just a second – "got his chance."

Since everybody in this room was aware of Sebastian's muses but unaware of how much Ciel knew about them already, their attention was glued to the boy while Undertaker helped himself to another piece of cake, acting as if he had done nothing wrong.

Ciel pressed his lips into a firm line before releasing them again appearing pensive. "Undertaker… Is that how you got your name? Because you bury other people's reputations by making up everybody else's minds?"

And here, Ciel smiled at him dryly, and Undertaker smiled back, amused.

Obviously glad about the change in subject, Ronald piped up: "He got his name in school, right?"

"How would you know?" Sebastian drawled. "You're too young."

"He told everyone," Gregory said. "How you were the weak, bullied kid as soon as your parents looked away."

Forget gagging Undertaker. Sebastian was going to strangle him one of these days.

"And how he took revenge on this kid on Halloween," Ronald finished.

"It involved a coffin and much screaming," Gregory said. "The kid was scared for months and never spoke to you again."

"Undertaker's a real mother hen when it comes to his friends," Ronald piped in, making Sebastian want to pull a face as Grell sniggered madly.

"A shame I didn't bury that kid, though," Undertaker muttered, smiling at having been referred to as a mother hen.

"I'm sure you did enough." Sebastian rolled his eyes.

Ciel turned to him. "You didn't strike me as having been a weak kid."

The artist grimaced, his face feeling a tad hotter than usual. "I was weak enough to be bullied by the children from the neighbourhood whenever I visited Undertaker." He shifted a little and eyed the gin bottle. Allowing his acquaintances to have it had not been a good idea.

Cue Grell's dramatic gasp. "Are you embarrassed, honey?"

It all went downhill from there.

Undertaker, with his proclaimed poor long-term memory, suddenly remembered quite a bit about Sebastian's childhood, even commented on a rather sore subject by mentioning Claude and what they used to do together as a trio. Gregory also had a few things to say about Undertaker, and in the end Ciel knew many stories about each of the individuals in the room. Sebastian almost smiled when the small body leaned a little against his side, completely relaxed and calm in the warm yet friendly-annoying atmosphere.

Until, of course, Ciel noticed what he was doing and carefully straightened again.

Gregory's phone rang.

The young photographer got up and left the room, leaving the others to continue their friendly (or not so friendly) quarrel. Sebastian didn't participate anymore, feeling that indeed, this was becoming gradually stupid and he shouldn't have let his acquaintances use that gin to spice up their chilled tea. Ciel who had only been eating cake until now, eyed the gin bottle as if having read Sebastian's thoughts.

When Gregory came back, their discussion came to an awkward halt. "Who was it?" Undertaker asked.

Gregory didn't sit down but leaned against the backrest of the sofa. "Edgar. He's coming here. I hope you don't mind, Sebastian, but this is rather urgent."

The atmosphere sobered up immediately.

Sebastian couldn't say that he liked Edgar, but as long as the model didn't bring Claude, there was nothing wrong in passing by. After all Gregory was the model's childhood friend, there was little Sebastian could do.

Grell grabbed the gin bottle and poured its contents into his cup. "Maybe he can get me closer to Claude?" he mused.

"That's all you ever think of, isn't it?" Ronald scratched the back of his head, as if not knowing whether he should feel embarrassed on Grell's behalf or not.

"We have been drifting apart since I decided to re-style his red dress." Grell shrugged. "I should make it up to him."

Sebastian took the bottle out of the redhead's hand, closed it and put it back on the table. Grell dropped the free hand into his lap and daintily sipped from his cup. "So what's with the 'urgent'? Did something happen?"

"It's got to do with Maurice, as far as I could tell," Gregory answered.

Grell clicked his tongue. "That useless brat."

The doorbell rang.

Sebastian got up and rolled his shoulders a little before he left the room, briefly entertaining the idea of telling his friends not to do anything stupid in his absence. Ciel slid off the couch quietly, throwing a scalding glare at Undertaker when the man giggled for no apparent reason. With swift, fluid movements, Gregory trailed along behind the pair.

When the door opened, Edgar glared at Sebastian, and it seemed as if it exhausted him. Then he brushed past him, and for the first time since Sebastian had known him, Gregory took the initiative and pulled his friend against his chest. Edgar spoke in rapid French - a habit that he had acquired over the years whenever he was too stressed, as well as a result from having Aleister as his older brother. Gregory responded in an even tone. When Sebastian glanced at Ciel, he realised that the boy understood what was being said, for he seemed to be listening intently.

Feeling left out with his own poor knowledge of the language (he could speak Spanish, Russian and three other languages semi-fluently, but French had never been of real interest to him), Sebastian cleared his throat, causing Edgar to spin around and out of Gregory's arms. "I would wish you a merry Christmas, but I can see that something is not right… Where's Maurice?"

Edgar remained silent and Gregory eased him towards the door. While the apprentice photographer put on his shoes, Edgar swallowed thickly. Then he looked at Ciel strangely. It made Sebastian want to stand between the model and the child, for Edgar's look held a dreadful and unwanted weight.

"Somebody took him away," Edgar said.

"What do you mean?" Sebastian asked. Next to him, Ciel had gone rigid.

The model pressed his lips together in a firm, colourless line, before releasing them and sighing.

"He's been missing for three days now."

* * *

_**End**_

_of_

_Act II - Encounter_

* * *

_Stuff is going to happen now. The second main plot just arrived._

_Thanks for reading! Hope you enjoyed it and don't forget the feedback ;)_

_On another note, **there will be an update this Saturday.** Stay tuned for a little **interlude** and maybe even **the next act** (depends; I'm not sure yet)?_

_Until Saturday!_


	13. Interlude II: Danse Macabre

**Interlude – Danse Macabre**

The corpse was a blond young man.

Undertaker had sewn together the man's gums so that the jaw wouldn't fall open when his parents were there and while Gregory was buttoning the man's tuxedo (getting it on the corpse was always work, since Undertaker refused to cut the clothes), the older male was brushing the blond locks.

"He had green eyes," Undertaker suddenly said.

Gregory, of course, knew that, but he also understood where this conversation was going right now.

It was past Christmas now, and Maurice was still missing. Edgar was practically worrying himself sick, and Claude Faustus had complained that this was the wrong moment to disappear.

Undertaker had found that funny.

Gregory not so much.

The mortician got a bottle of baby oil and put a little amount on the corpse's hair, making it shine healthily.

"I think he was twenty," Undertaker continued.

Gregory, now done with the buttons, straightened the tuxedo carefully and then placed the cold hands over the corpse's stomach. "Maurice is a tad younger."

"Just a tad," Undertaker said. "But can we still speak about him in the present tense?"

Gregory raised an eyebrow. "Why? Do you think past tense would be more appropriate?"

"Maybe~"

The younger male fell silent as he fetched the make-up creams. "Should we?" he finally asked.

"Maurice was a cute young man," Undertaker mused, as if testing the waters.

"Very cute," Gregory said.

"Hopelessly in love with Edgar."

"I wonder whether he's regretting having ignored Maurice."

Undertaker blinked. "He ignored him?"

Gregory shrugged. "Do you have another explanation for his behaviour?"

The mortician giggled. "You remind me of myself. Always thinking along absurd lines."

Gregory thought he felt something warm stirring inside him.

It might be heartburn.

"Back to Maurice!" Undertaker called, punching the air. Gregory watched the fist with disinterest.

"He was a good model."

"A nice subject."

"What do you think happened to him?"

"Oh, he died."

"… Undertaker, we wouldn't be talking about him in past tense if we didn't assume that he's dead."

"He was killed."

"By?"

A snort. "A truck."

Oh, a Sebastian reference. Gregory wondered whether Undertaker liked those. "I don't think that's likely."

"Do you think he was abducted?"

Gregory wanted to grimace. Emphasis on 'wanted'. "Maybe."

"I think it's quite likely. Or he killed himself because of Edgar."

Gregory looked up from the corpse's now healthier-looking skin.

Undertaker pursed his lips. "He wouldn't do that, would he?"

"He wouldn't."

"Then he's been abducted."

"By?"

A lazy grin. "Aliens?"

Gregory remained silent to express what he thought of this theory.

"Then…" - Undertaker got the spray they used to cover up body odours – "What do you think of serial killers?"

A pang to Gregory's chest. He might have eaten something wrong. "I," he started slowly, carefully, "think we should stop."

Undertaker's ever-present grin had vanished. He went to wash his hands. "The chapel wants the body at two. We've got some time left for biscuits."

Gregory nodded and went to stand next to Undertaker, holding his hand under the stream of water. "We're not nice."

At this, Undertaker nodded. "We aren't."

"I don't think that Maurice is dead."

"Me neither."

Their shoulders brushed. Undertaker snatched the disinfecting soap from the apprentice's hands. Gregory let him.

"He might really be abducted," the younger male muttered.

"Maybe~"

"Who do you think did it?"

Undertaker paused to contemplate this. Gregory seized the opportunity to snatch away the soap bar from Undertaker's hands. The older man let him.

"Among all the filthy hands he could have fallen into, let's just hope he's in the cleanest pair."

They finished washing their hands and went to Undertaker's kitchen. When they went to the living-room, Gregory spotted a monochrome snapshot of Edgar and Maurice on the wall of photographs, something that Undertaker had also installed in Sebastian's and Grell's house.

"Cherubic beauty," Gregory finally said, regarding the pair broodingly, "must be a true curse."

A giggle to his left.

"You're rather handsome yourself," Undertaker pointed out, tilting his head downwards to peek under his apprentice's hood.

Gregory stared at him without blinking.

Stupid heartburn, really.

He opened his mouth and settled for a small, half-hearted huff. "Be quiet, lest I also get abducted."

* * *

_fin._

* * *

_There is something about Undertaker/Gregory interaction that I really like. Those two should be best buddies or something. _

_On to Act III!_


	14. ACT III: Interest

**Disclaimer:** Pfft, are you kidding me?

**A/N:** And welcome to the next act! Don't forget your reviews, dears, they keep me motivated and all that. I actually intended to post this chapter on Wednesday, but then I thought 'what the hell' and posted it right now. Yeah, that's all. Please enjoy!

* * *

_**ACT III**_

_Interest _

_(Photography)_

_Taken at the death of a year_

* * *

**Chapter 12**

_A sponge glides over grey skin._

"_I could become a make-up artist," the photographer-but-at-the-moment-mortician muses. "I'm pretty good at this."_

"_She looks wonderful," Gregory says as he shoulders his bag and heads for the door. "I'm going home now. Bye."_

"_Bye," Undertaker sings, trying to colour Irene Diaz in a healthier shade._

"_Bye," Sebastian mutters and watches the younger male leave the mortuary. He glances at Irene again, feeling that he shouldn't be here anyway, and looks for a place to sit. Nothing there._

"_You know what Claude would say?" Undertaker asks happily. "He'd say the beast attacked again."_

_Sebastian rolls his eyes, not gracing this statement with a verbal answer._

"_And you know what, I think it's true." Undertaker puts the sponge away, admiring his handiwork. Irene's parents are going to see their daughter tomorrow, and the funeral will take place the day after. Sebastian won't attend since… well, he's been Irene's little secret, so to speak. Only his field of acquaintances knew of them, sharing half-amused yet barely worried looks with each other or looking at her in a way that clearly said 'Poor girl's going to die soon'. _

_And… Sebastian would rather bite off his tongue than admit it aloud, but they've been right with their silent accusations._

"_I think," Undertaker says, stressing the 'think' awkwardly as he colours Irene's lips in a dark rosé, "that the beast has attacked again. The victim had no means of defending itself, frail and weak as it was… blended as it was… Was the hunt fun, Sebastian?"_

_He doesn't answer._

_Undertaker moves to wash his hands, almost gliding over the floor. "What are you looking for?"_

"_Somewhere to sit," Sebastian answers blandly, "but you haven't got any chairs here except for your own."_

_The photographer/mortician turns around, his hands still under a stream of water. Sebastian thinks that if Undertaker ever dedicates his life to photography, this place will seem so empty without him. He fits into this mortuary, and he fits well, and he will miss it dearly in a few years should he ever decide to completely focus on his photography. "That's not what I meant."_

"_I'm sure it's not." Sebastian shrugs, trying to appear nonchalant. Might as well humour Undertaker. "What I am looking for is beyond me."_

_Silence ensues._

"_You must be testing them, Sebastian." Undertaker dries his hands and motions for the artist to follow him out of the chilly room and back into his house. "Do you feel as if you've lost anything?"_

"_No," Sebastian says immediately. Yes, Irene is dead and yes, that isn't very pleasant, but he just can't bring himself to care too much about it. People die. That is how life works._

"_She didn't pass the test, did she now?" Undertaker grins widely at him. "The weak break and the strong crack."_

"_Back to Claude?" And Ash, his mind offers, but Sebastian likes to think that Undertaker doesn't know about Ash._

"_He is strong-willed," Undertaker says. "And that is why he didn't die."_

"_He attacked me with a knife."_

"_But he's not dead, is he?" Undertaker watches him, curiosity written all over his face. "It's just as I said. How long did he keep you inspired after he left?"_

_Two years._

_The strong crack._

_And even if things have gone downhill with Ash, he was around for _four_ years, and Sebastian's inspiration hadn't run dry when he met Irene. _

_Ash, though, has cracked as well. But he had been able to nurture this need inside Sebastian, which Irene in turn couldn't._

_Sebastian refrains from answering._

"_What you are looking for is an unending source, something you can feed off without crumbling it between your fingers." Undertaker is smiling now, lips stretching over teeth, and his knowing eyes hide behind the silver fringe. "I hope, for the sake of your next victim, that you stay full for a long time."_

_Sebastian goes home that evening to waste his time on the couch. He doesn't touch food or drink, feels neither hunger nor thirst. He knows he's only full for the moment._

_The memory of formaldehyde makes him think he's breathing it at the moment. He shakes his head, trying to will away the smell, but it stays. It makes him think of Irene, poor unfortunate Irene who hasn't been quite strong enough to push him away like a certain individual did, who wasn't smart enough to jump off before this would kill her. It's not his fault, he thinks, if she lacked survival instinct. If she, on the other hand, also lacked the strength and endurance needed. And it's certainly not his fault if she stayed while knowing that the beast was closing in on her, circling her like the predator that it was._

_Sebastian rests a hand above the place where his ribcage parts. He can feel his heart pumping blood through his body. Staring at the ceiling, he thinks of the heartbeats that he has left. Quite a few, he decides, for he is still young and healthy and has a long life ahead. Yet, he wonders, by simply lying around, isn't he wasting them? And he is, he realizes, since he's doing nothing at all. He's wasting his heartbeats and he can't get them back._

I've got Irene's unused heartbeats to make up for it,_ is the thought that immediately follows._

_He starts._

_(This certainly didn't sound like something he would think.)_

_He laughs. Wouldn't that be an interesting case, taking other people's spare heartbeats for oneself by ending their life? The thought doesn't even find a place in his head to settle, he quickly throws it out again. It's ridiculous and he isn't thinking straight._

_Besides, it isn't as if he's robbing people's lives in the first place. They all die around him, yes, but Sebastian is a factor, not a cause, and he finds that this explains everything sufficiently._

_Irene is hiding behind his eyelids as he contemplates the idea of life robbers (how come he doesn't have an author among his acquaintances? He'd suggest this idea to them), his hand absorbing the trembling in his chest every time that his heart pumps, and the beast returns to its den, full and satisfied as it lies down on the hard floor to sleep. The hunt is over and the host can use the acquired energy now. The beast will rest until the energy is spent, until the host can't create anymore._

_And then…_

_Then it will rear its ugly head, stand on emaciated legs and leave its den to hunt down prey, to find what it is looking for._

_And it will always hunt until it won't have to starve anymore._

_But for now, it is full._

_Sebastian closes his eyes, and Irene is laughing at him._

_He goes away that summer, looks at the world and collects impressions._

_He comes back and creates._

…

_Four months later, the beast's eyes open. It lifts its ugly head and leaves its den to hunt._

_It searches -_

_And it finds…_

**OOO**

Ciel Phantomhive had taken an interest in Undertaker's photographs.

There he was, sitting on the wooden floor and with his back against one of Undertaker's couches, and staring at the whole length of the photo wall. It was more of an incredibly large collage containing normal-sized photographs, one or two drawings (not from Sebastian; there was, for example, a stick figure telling a crude joke), and larger photographs, some of them almost life-size. Edgar, Maurice and Gregory were constantly seen on these pictures, but there were also pictures from Alois and Claude (from the Viscount's party). Sebastian, Grell and Ronald were also there, their expressions varying from annoyed – mostly Sebastian – to adorably stupid – mostly Ronald.

Sebastian was watching the boy silently as the others in the room chatted, as Undertaker tried on his tuxedo and held out his baby blue-socked feet to which Gregory then shook his head. "Don't you have any normal socks?"

Ciel leaned back a little, and Sebastian wondered which picture he was looking at.

Madame Red and Grell had found a friend in each other in the first two minutes after they had learned the other's name. They were drinking champagne already, stolen from Undertaker's stash, of course. (Sebastian knew that it had been there for Grell in the first place; the mortician hated this beverage.)

The living-room was buzzing with life, and almost everybody just seemed to fit in. Everybody partook in some kind of activity, be it talking, drinking or suggesting Undertaker wear neon green socks -_ pretty please, dude? That would look so awesome!_ (Gregory shot Ronald an unhappy look for that.) Even Madame Red, with Grell's help and her being a natural in socialising, gave off the impression of having known everyone here for ages. Ciel was comfortable enough in his quiet observations to fit in just as well, if not better.

There were only two people completely out of place.

The first one was, rather surprisingly, Edgar, usually the perfect host, having learnt it because of his father and brother, and thus very good at socialising. Now that Maurice had been gone for approximately ten days, Edgar seemed determined on worrying himself sick and becoming a chain smoker. Right now, he was sitting there, next to Sebastian to be precise, and he was staring at the large photograph of himself and Maurice. He hadn't said anything except for a greeting today, and he seemed to be talking less from day to day. Yet he managed not to look like a shivering pile of misery. He sat there with his back straight, his gaze composed, his attitude a mix of aloofness and elegance. If it wasn't for the fact that his hand had trembled when he'd shaken Sebastian's, if it wasn't for the fact that he excluded himself from every kind of conversation, if his mind wasn't so obviously far away that even Ronald noticed, nothing would have tipped him off.

He even leaned in to rest his head on Sebastian's shoulder.

The artist almost froze at this, but didn't dare push him off. He didn't feel like having to deal with the shards if he happened to shatter Edgar with dismissal.

When the others turned to have a look at Undertaker's collage, nobody dared make a comment on Maurice's pictures. It was very evident that this was a topic that everyone stumbled over awkwardly, with or without Edgar in the room. The only one who would ever talk about it aloud would be Undertaker.

The second person who didn't fit in was – who would've guessed – nobody else than William T. Michaelis, formerly known under the surname 'Spears' until he inherited what had rightly been Sebastian's. The hotel manager was a stubbornly quiet man, apparently very annoyed by how Grell was always groping him almost everywhere, how the redhead was even worse of an Alois than the little blond boy himself. Sebastian found it vaguely amusing, but this was his cousin, and a textbook Michaelis as well, so the entertainment that Sebastian drew from William's unfortunate situation was quickly lost again.

The creative genes had never run deep in the family, the men were born business people, and the women either that or they would spend the rest of their lives looking pretty on the arms of husbands that would have to benefit the family. The artists were either shunned or, if they were successful, happily welcomed back. Having been disinherited, though, Sebastian could forget ever being able to come back to his family despite his worldwide success. However, he didn't find it sad, even if it meant that Claude had beaten him in that game. Looking at the Michaelis made him rather glad not to be an active part of the family. It also made him childishly happy to see that he could still affect William by only sitting there. Despite being an outcast, he was still considered dangerous to the family head's throne. He wouldn't make a move, though. There was no way that he would get involved in family business again.

William was staring at him as if he would.

Sebastian, feeling the humour of the situation drain again, sighed, averted his gaze and put a hand around Edgar's shoulder. "Don't fall asleep."

The model gave a dry chuckle. "I won't. Thank you for taking me as your date, though."

Sebastian grimaced. Why did the blond manage to make the simple word 'date' sound improper? "Do you have to say it that way?"

"How do you want me to say it?" Edgar grinned.

The artist frowned. "I'm just being nice, you know. Continue and I'm going to leave you here."

Edgar grinned wider.

_Click._

The pair looked at the silver-haired man in front of them who had his precious camera pointed at them, his own grin almost splitting his face in two halves. "I couldn't resist," he said. "The three of you provide such good material."

"The three of us?" Sebastian repeated, and then he turned his head. Ciel was at the end of the couch, his cheeks stained red, glaring at Undertaker. Had he been watching Sebastian and Edgar? The artist couldn't help but smile before he turned to his friend (acquaintance), letting go of Edgar's shoulder. "We'll be going to Ash's house now if you don't mind. We're already fashionably late."

"Fashionably late sounds good," Madame Red chimed, stepping over to her nephew while finishing her champagne. "Get up, darling."

Ciel sneered at her, his cheeks darkening further, but did as he was told. The two of them got into Sebastian's car along with Edgar.

The ride was silent; not even Madame Red opened her mouth. Until they passed the ages to Ash's house, of course. She whistled lowly, then started pointing at the larger than life sized statues, expressing what she thought of them. Sebastian noticed that each and every one of these statues wore a blindfold. When they arrived at the door, though, Sebastian spotted the statue of a woman in the middle of the driveway, with a scale in her left hand and a sword in her right. She was looking serenely at the off-balanced scale with uncovered eyes.

Sebastian swallowed involuntarily.

At the door, the four of them got out of the car, which was driven away by a middle-aged man. A woman checked their names on the list of invited people and allowed them to enter with their guests. The interior of Ash's house was pre-dominantly white, although with the regular interruption by lavender. When one cared to look up to the high roof of the entrance hall, one would find a large painting on the ceiling, bright in its colours, yet morbid in its message.

Ash was in the ballroom with his other guests, smiling radiantly, managing to look ethereal in his white suit. When he spotted Sebastian, he left his place next to a young woman. The artist found himself surrounded by arms clad in white fabric and the smell of roses. "Long time no see," he said.

Sebastian nodded dumbly, somehow plastering a smile onto his face. "Indeed. Tell me, does the constellation along the driveway have a name?"

"Yes." Ash's smile appeared strangely off. "It's called 'The Corrupt'."

Then he noticed Ciel.

"Young Phantomhive, I'm glad to see that you followed my invitation! What a handsome young man you are." He shook Ciel's hand, leaning in a little. His gaze snapped from the boy to Sebastian and back again, and that was when his smile froze. It was something only Sebastian would notice, after all he had been studying Ash for years.

The boy wore a serious expression.

"I thank you for inviting me. This is my aunt, Angelina Durless."

While Undertaker and the others arrived, Sebastian decided to either keep Ciel at his side or away from Ash should Ash decide that Sebastian had to be with him.

"Edgar!"

With a glass of red wine in his hand and a songbird in tow, Aleister Chambers approached his blanching brother, taking quick steps. The model stood rigid when Aleister hugged him, showering him with his condolences about Maurice's disappearance, offering his glass of wine which Edgar refused and then continued with a monologue about how they hadn't seen each other in three weeks.

Edgar seemed confused at first. Then his facial expression grew colder by the second.

Sebastian wondered what was wrong with them. He regarded them silently while Angelina was chatting with Ash, Ciel by her side and not too close to Ash who seemed to be catching on too quickly.

Aleister lowered his voice and the songbird turned to watch the dancing people. With a long-suffering sigh, Edgar stepped back from his older brother. He shook his head. Then he rushed over to Claude and Alois; the former wrapped his arms around both blonds as a picture was taken.

Sebastian saw his cousin and wanted to strangle him. He noticed how Ciel was now looking into the opposite direction of the room, which also happened to be Ash's general direction. The white-haired artist cocked his head to the side, his smile friendly enough, and then brushed Ciel's hair out of the boy's face with a gloved hand. He looked at the eye patch a tad too long.

"Ash," Sebastian began, and he grabbed his former muse by the hand to pull him away, "we should catch up a little bit."

"Yes, we should." Ash turned to smile at Sebastian. "But the people will miss their host."

The guests seemed pretty well off with dancing and talking in small groups, sometimes gathering in front of life-sized statues. Some were leaving the room to look at the statues that Ash had distributed in his house.

"I'll return you before New Year's." Sebastian started pulling the artist towards the ballroom's doors. From the corner by the buffet, Undertaker brushed back his fringe, his all-knowing eyes following them. Grasping the hand clothed in a black glove tighter, Sebastian quickened his pace. Ash followed him wordlessly. Surely he was also aware of the sudden drop in temperature between them. When they reached a secluded corridor, having passed and waved at many guests (their holding hands could have been severely misinterpreted), their smiles had fallen off their faces and they were regarding each other as if trying to assess the current situation. Ash leaned against the wall while Sebastian crossed his arms in front of his chest.

"We haven't talked for such a long time," Ash finally said. "Two years, to be precise. At Aleister's dinner party when he becamoe your benefactor, remember?"

"I doubted you'd want to talk to me," Sebastian muttered, wondering how he could keep the topic away from Ciel.

"I'm always available to spare for a few words, old friend." The way Ash said this didn't sound sincere in the slightest. He gestured for Sebastian to follow him. The artist looked into the deserted corridor with a slight feeling of dread washing over him. But did as he was asked and soon they came to a halt in front of a large ornamented door. "You need to see what I did for my dear sister."

They entered a large room that surely was supposed to be a chapel done in baroque style. Ash walked to the aisle with confident strides while Sebastian frowned at the room in general. Even more so when he finally spotted the 'angel' behind the altar, shielded from the rest of the room by a wall of glass. It was a sculpture of Angela, and it was wearing the dress that even Sebastian knew she had loved dearly. Behind her, the wall had been painted so that the swirls of gold upon it assumed the shape of two wings.

"She… was beautiful," Sebastian said carefully, not knowing how Ash would behave after three years when being talked to about his sister. He destroyed the interior of his and Angela's little house back then, leaving Sebastian to stare at the mess in shock.

Right now, he seemed calm enough. "She was," he said. "Her coffin is underneath our feet, do you wish to see it?"

Sebastian blinked. "Why not? Lead the way."

Between the altar and the glass wall was a trapdoor that Ash opened with a key. Sebastian felt the coldness that came from the glass. Before he went downstairs, he took a few seconds to admire Ash's hard work. The man was very talented with his sculptures and statues.

The underground mausoleum was – how else could it be – dressed in white marble. It was ice cold in here, but Sebastian seemed to be the only one affected. Ash simply stood there, regarding his sister's marmoreal coffin silently. On its lid Sebastian could see Angela's serene face, her eyes closed, and he stepped back when Ash _moved_ the lid. "What are you-"

The artist laughed. "Calm down, old friend, it's an urn that's inside. I'm just checking if it's still there."

"Who would steal an urn?"

Ash gave him a blank look. "You tell me." He peeked inside, nodded in satisfaction and closed the lid again, much to Sebastian's relief. They stood in silence for a few more moments before Ash nodded to the stairs that lead up to the chapel. "How have you been?" he asked as they climbed the stairs.

"Pretty well, actually." Sebastian shrugged. "The Japanese have a growing interest in my paintings, so I'll be going there in summer."

Ash regarded him, then cocked his head to the side and smiled. "You've got a muse."

Sebastian should have known that they would get to this topic sooner or later. "What if I did?"

"It's the boy, isn't it? I would recognize the look you gave him anywhere, seeing that I've been subjected to it in the presence of other people often over the course of four years." He seemed smug at that and Sebastian almost rolled his eyes. Of course he felt protective over his muses. He didn't see anything wrong in that.

"He survived, hm?" Ash brushed his hair back. "Lucky child."

Sebastian pursed his lips. "You might want to leave him alone."

"Why? We could exchange stories about being psychologically sucked dry by you."

"You did the very same thing to me, Ash."

The white-haired man looked him up and down. "If you weren't connected to such a difficult time of my past, I'd do it again."

"I honestly can't say that I'm disappointed," Sebastian remarked dryly.

Ash laughed. "One more sculpture, though."

"I'll think about it." He saw no harm in humouring the other man.

Casting a quick glance at his sister's sculpture behind the glass, Ash let his hand brush over Sebastian's shoulder. "Maybe we should return before rumours spread."

"That would be the last thing I need," Sebastian said, almost groaning at the mere thought. Ash gave a dry chuckle and let him take the lead. Fortunately, he separated himself from Sebastian the moment they entered. The painter had not missed the sudden, sharp glint in the other's eyes as he laid them upon a certain individual.

Edgar was currently talking to the songbird that Aleister had taken with him to the party. The girl was responding in sign language while Edgar watched her hands attentively. Sebastian saw exactly how Aleister's carefully-friendly façade dropped as soon as Ash turned his head towards the trio. Then the blond Viscount took it upon himself to point out something at the buffet, to which Edgar only cringed. Either Aleister had been talking about a dessert that Edgar didn't allow himself to eat or their relationship had just reached a new low point. While the younger man carefully slid Aleister's hand from his shoulder by taking it into his own hand first and then dropping it, the older brother seemed not amused at all.

Especially not when Edgar spotted Ash across the room.

Ash on the other hand smiled, and Sebastian couldn't help but watch as he outstretched a hand to gesture for Edgar to come closer. The model followed the silent order, smiling pleasantly like he always did. Ash didn't seem too affected by it, not as much as everybody else would. "We never had the opportunity to talk, even if you are my benefactor's little brother," he said.

"Well, we can talk now." Edgar outstretched his hand. "Nice to finally meet _and_ talk to you."

"Indeed." Ash shook the hand, holding on to it, turning it in his grasp so that Edgar's hand lay on top of his. "Such delicate fingers you've got."

_Here it goes_, Sebastian thought to himself as Ash's gaze travelled over Edgar's body. "Such a delicate body in general. What a beautiful specimen you are."

When he lifted his free hand to trace the line of Edgar's jaw, Aleister cut in. "I think that's enough, Ash."

The white-haired artist raised an eyebrow. "I'm only enjoying the sight."

The Viscount seemed serious for once. "My brother and I need to _talk_."

At this, Edgar turned his head to his brother, smiling pleasantly. "I'm busy, Aleister."

Something dark crossed the Viscount's face. Then, suddenly, the nobleman started wailing, running away and leaving the scent of wine and flowery perfume in his wake. The songbird who'd followed them stood there undecided.

The model pursed his lips. "You might want to go to him, sweetie."

The girl narrowed her eyes at him – instant dislike because of implications that Sebastian didn't know about -, before she also left.

Ash, the successful one, hooked his finger under Edgar's chin and made him look up. "I could eternalise your beauty through my art." He chuckled. "And I'm serious about that, no matter how cheesy it sounds."

"Actually, that's a rather creative line." Edgar shrugged. "You'd cringe at what I've heard already."

Each of them took a small step backwards to give the other personal space, then they started chatting amicably, the tension from earlier gone. Sebastian turned away from them, wondering whether he should see how the Viscount was faring, but decided against it. This wasn't his business, after all.

He found Ciel standing by Undertaker and Gregory, far away from Claude and Alois who had just joined Ash and Edgar upon the model's request. While Claude seemed to be bored by this, Alois was positively ecstatic about meeting Ash in person.

Sebastian wanted to break his cousin's neck.

Instead, though, he sneaked an arm around Ciel's shoulder, pulling him closer to his body and shielding him from his two acquaintances. "I hope you took good care of my muse," he said.

Ciel sighed in annoyance against his shirt.

"Of course we did," Undertaker chimed, "can't have you kill another young lady or man."

Ciel's body stiffened in response to that.

"I didn't –" Sebastian interrupted himself. Why was he even bothering? "You know what, think whatever you want."

"Oh, we certainly will." Undertaker cackled. Then he nodded into Edgar's direction. "Dear friend, the situation is bad."

Sebastian frowned. Edgar looking comfortable should be the least of their problems. "Why?"

"He knows something." Undertaker glanced at the artist expectantly. "It's written all over him."

With his arm still around Ciel, Sebastian scooted a little bit closer to Undertaker. People shouldn't find out what they were talking about. "I do hope you aren't referring to Maurice. Edgar is worried."

"He's not the type to be worried like that. He _smokes_ now." Undertaker giggled, as if this was an amusing game. "Trust me, I know him longer than you through Gregory. I've been in contact with him more often than you. It's the little things that count. Whenever Maurice is mentioned, his whole body language changes. He lowers his head just a fraction and his hands tremble. He grows restless. He is nervous, but it's not the worried kind at first. It's the guilty kind. He started talking in French the first times I mentioned Maurice." He looked at Gregory as if he wanted his apprentice to confirm his suspicions. The younger male gave a slight nod before Undertaker continued. "Only _then_ come the signs of worry. They're sincere, though, so we can assume that he isn't involved in Maurice's disappearance as an accomplice, but rather as a victim."

Sebastian didn't know where to begin with this theory. "I think you're reading too much into it."

"I'm not. Somebody should ask him."

"We shouldn't," Sebastian cut in.

"Why not?" Undertaker gazed at him with his frighteningly green eyes. "Because it's 'none of our business'? What a very Michaelis thing to say."

"I don't mean it this way," Sebastian explained. "I'm trying to say that we shouldn't act on our suspicions so quickly."

"When have my suspicions ever been wrong?"

Sebastian's eyes narrowed. "Just three minutes ago when you – again – accused me of murder."

"Oh, but there are so many ways to kill a person without _killing _them." Undertaker grinned widely. Sebastian didn't return the sentiment. "But I can see I've stirred things up a little. I should take my leave now before the two of us quarrel. It would be sad, don't you think?"

"These days, I don't."

Undertaker's grin grew, if this was even possible. "I love you too~" He turned to Ciel. "It was nice chatting with you. We should do that again."

"The pleasure's mine," the boy replied, but not without tension in his voice.

Watching the retreating duo, Sebastian and Ciel waited until they were out of sight. "I wonder why they always leave me alone with you," Ciel said with a sigh.

"Do you not enjoy my company?" Sebastian asked jokingly, dropping his arms. He could feel that the boy was trying to ease up the tension from just now; it would do better if Sebastian relaxed again. After all, he shouldn't take Undertaker too seriously. The man was prone to very elaborate and morbid pranks.

"Certainly not. You are a bore."

"That hurt."

The boy's lips twitched slightly.

"Where did your aunt go?"

"She's having a look at the house and Ash's sculptures." Ciel shrugged. "I didn't want to join her. The people here seem more interesting."

"I hope you're not referring to William." Said man was standing by the musicians together with Grell who couldn't quite keep his paws off the Michaelis heir. William seemed torn between glaring daggers at Sebastian and pushing Grell away.

Sebastian didn't know why he'd come here in the first place. He also wondered why Ash would invite Claude and William along with Sebastian, knowing about the Michaelis family. It could have been meant to make the painter feel uncomfortable, and he certainly did since he had no way to escape this irritating situation.

"Do you know what's wrong with Edgar and the Viscount?" Ciel asked suddenly. "They seemed quite close until Maurice vanished."

"They were," Sebastian confirmed. "I've been wondering about this development, too."

All of a sudden, there was a scream.

Ciel's head whipped around and Ash, still with his little group, slowly turned to the door, one eyebrow raised in mildly bored inquiry. Apart from them, nobody else had heard the scream, for most of the people where either by the buffet, in the garden or dancing.

"That sounded like my aunt," Ciel said.

Sebastian nodded. "Let's find her."

Ash also moved towards the door, leaving Edgar, Claude and Alois behind. While Edgar did seem curious – even more so Alois – Claude said something that kept them at his side. Probably something along the lines of 'This is certainly not our business.'(After all, this was a Michaelis line. If they couldn't benefit from it, they didn't care.)

With the help of a concerned guest, they found Madame Red on the second storey in one of the corridors that lead away from the entrance hall. The woman was leaning against the wall, having dropped her wine glass, and she was staring at a small table with one of Ash's creations on it.

"Oh," the artist murmured behind them, "I knew I forgot to put away that one."

Ciel walked up to his aunt, reluctantly touching her arm. "What happened?"

Madame Red looked at her nephew and then sobbed harshly, her hands rising to her mouth to keep the sounds there. Ciel turned his head to the stand, flinched and paled.

Coming closer carefully, Sebastian could clearly see the head of white marble, as well as the arm made of black marble. The small paper card in front of the two body parts bore the title 'Vincent Phantomhive'.

* * *

_I told you that stuff was going to happen now :) See you all on Wednesday!_


	15. Interest II

**Chapter 13**

It was strange, looking at your dead father's head, even if it wasn't the actual body part. Ciel swallowed thickly, now regarding the arm. He knew what Ash was referring to here: When the bones were retrieved, his father's left arm and his right leg had been removed prior to the fire.

This information was supposed to stay classified.

Every time Ciel tried to breathe, the smell of thick smoke would penetrate his nose. He staggered backwards, trying to will his rapidly beating heart into a slower pace as he thought he could hear the wood creaking above them, weakened by fire.

"What is the meaning of this, Ash?" Sebastian's voice returned Ciel to the actual happenings in the corridor. The artist was looking at his former muse sharply.

Ash simply shrugged in return, barely apologetic. "I'm truly sorry for this, Miss Durless. I intended to put it away but unfortunately, I forgot about it."

Ciel's vision started unfocusing as flames crawled up Ash's suit.

"What a vile thing to create," Angelina said somewhere from behind him.

"Vile?" Ash repeated slowly. "Anything but, my lady, I assure you. I'd heard of the incident in the news back then, and while it might seem morbid, it inspired me. Artists are slaves of their inspiration, please don't forget that. Sometimes things like this are the result. I have to emphasize that the circumstance under which my works were created does not make them vile in any shape or form."

"That's enough, Ash," Sebastian murmured. Ciel flinched when arms wrapped around him, but as soon as he perceived the familiar scent through the thick smoke, he stopped himself from using his nails on the person's face.

"Of course it is," Ash replied smoothly, gaze jumping from Sebastian to Ciel and back again. "Again, I apologise. I shall remove this from your sight at once."

Aunt Anne didn't respond.

Sebastian rested his chin on Ciel's head. "Are you okay?"

As the smell of smoke left, the only thing that was concerning him was his wobbling knees and his rapidly beating heart. Ciel felt his face growing hot while removing Sebastian's hands from his person. "What are you doing? Of course I'm alright. Do not assume anything else."

"You did seem quite distraught."

Ciel looked at the now empty table, and then at Ash's retreating figure. "Well, I wasn't." He turned to his aunt. "Aunt Anne?"

The woman clad in red was leaning against the wall, her hand covering her mouth. "I'm fine, darling."

"Yes," Ciel answered slowly. "I can see that from the black streaks on your cheeks."

Aunt Anne cursed softly. "Let me go to the restroom quickly." She took off.

For a few minutes, Sebastian and Ciel just stood there together. The artist was close enough for Ciel to feel his body heat, but should Sebastian touch him, Ciel would be furious. The last thing he needed now was being handled like a child.

"If you want to talk about it," Sebastian began, and Ciel spun around angrily, which cut the man off.

"No, I don't want to talk about this! I never will, so stop trying!"

Sebastian raised an eyebrow. "Alright, I was just offering my ear."

"You were trying to satisfy your own curiosity!" Ciel took a deep breath, still shaking from having seen the replica of his father's head and arm, but he tried to calm himself down and headed for the stairs that would lead him downstairs. Sebastian of course, followed him.

In the ballroom, Ash had already returned to hold his Sylvester speech. Nobody seemed to have noticed what had just transpired, and Ciel, standing at the back of the room with his back to the wall figured that he wasn't surprised about this.

"You will drive my Aunt and me home after the fireworks," Ciel said to Sebastian quietly. "It would be impolite to leave earlier."

The artist nodded.

Aleister was back in the room again, one arm around the songbird, and he was searching the room as if looking for somebody. When Ash asked his visitors to go on the terrace, Ciel purposefully walked slower than the others, watching those two. There was an unnamed tension between Ash and Aleister, silent yet even unpleasant for an onlooker. Ciel wondered how they could be so antagonistic towards each other when Aleister was Ash's benefactor and never had seemed to show any dislike towards the artist.

The name 'Edgar' was said and everything fell into place. While he had been talking to Undertaker, he hadn't missed what had transpired between the three of them, even though he didn't know what had been said.

Ciel felt a little bit bewildered; Aleister talked as if Ash had done something highly offensive by just touching the model. On the other hand, his love for his little brother was so apparent, it would have made Ciel smile had he not sensed the underlining subjects of their conversation.

Ash smiled serenely at his benefactor. "I highly doubt there's anything you can do."

This wasn't _entirely_ about Edgar, Ciel realized.

"Believe me, there is. You're the one who's in danger."

"I dearly hope you aren't threatening me." Ash stepped closer, and Aleister's eyes narrowed. "If Edgar wants to talk to me, he can. You shouldn't try to restrict him." His lips twitched. "Or could it be that you are jealous? I see that your relationship has been… strained."

Ciel passed the glass doors when Ash leaned in to whisper something into Aleister's ear.

"Ash and Aleister," he said to Sebastian when he found the man on the terrace, "do they have some sort of history together?"

Sebastian frowned mildly. "Why are you asking?"

"They don't seem very fond of each other to be honest. And it appears that Edgar is only the tip of the iceberg."

The artist sighed. "I wouldn't know. I met Ash again when Aleister invited me to a dinner party right after he became my benefactor two or three years ago. They behaved as if they were good friends." He shrugged. "I assume that Edgar's behaviour is a little bit too harsh for Aleister's frail nerves. He seems to be used to Edgar allowing hugs and listening to his incessant blabber with a smile."

The countdown began.

"Oh." Ciel nodded. "That doesn't sound too far-fetched, I guess."

Yet there was something that didn't fit Sebastian's assumptions.

Cries of 'Happy New Year!' filled the air as the fireworks began. Ciel watched them without much interest. Some things just didn't hold the same fascination anymore since _that_ month. The fireworks seemed to take forever and he just wanted to go home by now. His aunt was nowhere to be seen, but Sebastian had retrieved Edgar who always shot dubious looks into the general mass of guests.

After a few words with Ash that didn't appear as sincere as they sounded, they left. Ciel found his Aunt with a glass of champagne waiting by the door. "I knew you'd try to be polite," she said with a sigh. "But I didn't want to come close to dear Mr Landers again."

Then she looked at Sebastian. "I saw a few sculptures of you," she stated blankly.

Ciel could already guess where this would be going.

Sebastian cleared his throat. "That could be. We were… friends."

She raised both eyebrows. "You were?"

The artist nodded carefully. "Do you wish to leave now?"

"Of course I do. Hell shall freeze over before I return to this house."

**OOO**

Ciel was playing Paganini when Aunt Anne decided to enter the room.

The boy didn't pay her much attention, choosing to regard Sebastian's two paintings instead. They were both on the same wall of his room, one above his bed, the other one with Ciel and his mother on the right. Ciel was used to seeing the flames on the first painting by now, though he couldn't help but wonder how well Sebastian and Rachel had known each other. Maybe they hadn't had that much contact considering that it was Angela who had been both their friend. Maybe they had just seen each other in passing.

"I don't like these," Anne stated right away.

Ciel stopped his play immediately, turning to his aunt. "Excuse me?"

"I'm thinking of putting them in the cellar," the woman elaborated, brushing imaginary dust off her blood red pencil skirt. "I don't like them. They are so… sinister."

Ciel looked at the unnamed painting that showed a piece of Sebastian's memories, the light colours in which it was painted, his mother's brilliant smile. "I fail to see the sinister part of those paintings."

"Ciel, you're almost on fire in that one!" She pointed at 'Escape'. "I don't like looking at them whenever I enter your room."

The boy finally lowered his father's old violin from his shoulder.

Anne sneered. "One of them draws your mother and the other one sculptures your father's remains. I don't like it one bit."

Ciel set his bow on the music stand, not quite willing to comprehend what his aunt was saying. Apparently, the incident at Ash's house had hit her worse than the boy had initially thought. Ciel himself wasn't very comfortable remembering the marmoreal head and arm of his father, but he was able to put it off as the product of a twisted surge of inspiration.

"They are alike," she said, regarding the paintings. "And I feel that you shouldn't be around either of them. Your mother was befriended by Ash's sister, she'd been at their small house whenever she had spare time, and she knew them well. See where it brought her." She closed her eyes and brushed back her hair. "And not to mention the bad luck of our dear Vincent…"

Ciel frowned mildly. His father had known Sebastian and the twins? It did make sense, considering that his mother had known them, but how come Sebastian had only mentioned Rachel?

"Fine," he finally conceded, "I'll take them down, Aunt Anne."

Angelina opened her eyes again, smiling softly at her nephew. "Be careful, honey."

Ciel had been hearing this phrase rather often lately.

* * *

**_Alright, dears, listen up (IMPORTANT STUFF WANTS TO BE SAID):_**

_The arc is not over (not by far) but still: **Another chapter this Saturday!**_

_(Because I feel like it.)_

_And happy me is happy: Crescendo is featured in the community 'His butler, connoisseur reader'_

_**Also**, we are nearing the 100 review mark. **If we reach**_** 100+**_** by **_**Saturday**_**, ****I'm going to write a Kuroshitsuji oneshot based on one of your prompts**(anyone can drop an idea if you feel like it; it can be a word or a sentence or whatever) just for fun, you see. I've got free time, not much to do and I'm in a writing frenzy. I say we should seize the opportunity. What do you guys think? (read: Are you even interested? Oo)Only start leaving prompts with review 100, though._


	16. Interest III

**A/N: **And we have indeed reached 100+ reviews! Thank you, dears, keep it up XD Also a big thank you for the favs and alerts. And a special thanks to Carrie2sky for the beta'ing.

That would be it. On another note: We're almost in 'Crescendo's Creepy Lane; fasten your seatbelts and keep the windows closed at all times. Please enjoy!

**Disclaimer**: Haha- no.

**Chapter 14**

Alois was sitting on one of Undertaker's couches, his arms crossed in front of his chest, his facial expression screaming of listlessness as Gregory set down a cup of tea on the coffee table, along with bone-shaped biscuits that Undertaker had baked.

That wasn't the strangest part though.

Claude was nowhere to be seen.

Ciel relaxed a little, still suspicious of the designer's whereabouts. Sebastian went past him, pointedly looking at Alois who in turn became even more sullen before turning to Undertaker. "Why is Claude's pet here?"

Alois' jaw dropped at this. It seemed as if he wanted to answer to this, but Gregory squeezed his shoulder in a way that clearly told him to shut up, so the blond boy leaned back again, slapped the older male's hand away and scoffed quietly.

"Claude is away for two days," Undertaker said conversationally, reaching past his friend in a half embrace as he gave Ciel a small plate with different (bone-shaped) biscuits. The boy accepted without expressing anything. "Coincidentally, his staff also has a few days off. He doesn't want to leave Alois alone – who would," he added under his breath, "though I heard that his past plays a role in this - so the kid's going to stay with Edgar."

"And…" Sebastian stepped back from Undertaker, who wouldn't move now that the artist's personal bubble had been invaded. "Where _is_ Edgar?"

"Away with Lawrence." Undertaker giggled. "He said that since Alois can't stand him anyway, he might as well delay their meeting by a few hours." The man looked at his watch. "But he called, said he'd come soon. And Alois likes Greggie somehow, so I think everyone's happy for the moment."

"He's away with Lawrence?" It seemed as if Sebastian had only caught this part. "As in..."

"I'm sure Edgar would call it a date. I would have said Lawrence would call it an abduction but that's what happened to Maurice. It would be impolite to refer to it as a joke, you see~"

Sebastian scrutinized his friend for the better part of ten seconds before he brushed past him and fully entered the living-room. Undertaker, rejected, brushed a few strands of hair out of his face and blinked. "Somebody's still sore about my accurate suspicions," he said.

"Suspicions are just that: Suspicions." Ciel took a chocolate-covered biscuit and gave the plate back to Undertaker. "As long as there is no proof, you cannot call them accurate."

"I could refuse to call them suspicions," Undertaker shot back with a smile. "Since we are talking about a highly likely truth. But that's just me being picky."

"I thought Sebastian is your friend," Ciel drawled, looking the man up and down.

"Oh, that he is." Undertaker was quick to assure him of that. "But the problem is that fate isn't on his side. It seems more likely that he played tricks on them than that they just went and jumped off a cli-"He stopped suddenly. "Now _that_ would be something the next muse could do, don't you think? Jumping off a cliff."

Ciel swallowed in discomfort and barely suppressed the flinch when Undertaker burst into sharp laughter.

"I apologise, little lamb, I forgot that you are his current muse. Shouldn't have said that, foolish old me." He giggled. "You just go so well with him, I sometimes forget why you are with him all the time. Not many have managed to look like this next to Sebastian, you know? I'm not used to it."

Ciel wanted to roll his eyes and flee from this senseless babble when Undertaker closed in; a well-timed move that not only startled Ciel but also kept him where he currently was. A cold hand came to rest on the place between the boy's neck and shoulder, the tip of one ridiculous long fingernail right above his jugular vein.

"To be honest, I think you have what it takes to survive. That's what you've been doing all these years already."

Ciel opened his mouth, closed it, and opened it.

Closed it again.

Then he removed Undertaker's hand from his shoulder and went to sit next to Sebastian.

"I would serve you something else than cookies," Undertaker started from the doorframe, "but I'm afraid we're out."

Sebastian gave a dismissing wave of his hand. "I came here to talk."

"Really now? What a pleasant change-"

"About Edgar," Sebastian finished. He turned in his seat, regarding Undertaker calmly. "There have been certain things that I found out prior to Maurice's disappearance, and I wonder whether Edgar is somehow connected to those people that could have caused the other event, too."

Ciel felt his heart skip a beat. The artist wouldn't talk about what he'd told him, right? He wouldn't mention the remaining person that probably was after him, would he?

Undertaker barely hid his curiosity. With a slight skip to his steps, he approached the couch, threw his skinny body on it, right next to Sebastian, landing right next to his friend. "Oh, that sounds interesting! Do tell me more."

Sebastian remained quiet, looking at the mortician.

Undertaker poked him. And again.

When that didn't help, he kept his eyes on Sebastian (was this some sort of strange battle of wills?, Ciel wondered), but talked to somebody else. "Alois, you may want to leave."

"Gladly," the teen said, "if only my nanny were here."

"This room, I meant." Undertaker broke eye contact with Sebastian to frown at the generality of his living-room. "Where is Edgar anyway?"

"If he doesn't call me soon, I might just have to call him," Gregory said. It somehow sounded like a threat when he said it like that.

"I guess we'll do it that way." Undertaker nodded in satisfaction.

"I'm not leaving this room without Ciel," Alois declared.

_Why_, Ciel wanted to ask, but when Sebastian whispered a soft 'I won't tell anything. Trust me' into the boy's ear, Ciel didn't feel the need to make sure that the artist wouldn't spill anything. He regarded Alois for a short moment, feeling dread and determination filling his mind, nodded, and then got up. Together the young teens exited the room, Alois closing the door behind them. As soon as they were alone in the hallway, the blond teen's eyes narrowed dangerously. He shoved Ciel against the next wall with surprising vehemence, startling the boy.

"You," he said, his voice dangerously low, "will keep your fingers way from Claude."

Ciel blinked, and then refrained from rolling his eyes for he didn't want to provoke Alois further. "It's not as if I want anything from him. He's a bastard."

Incidentally, these were the wrong words, which was why Ciel found himself tossed to the floor the next moment. Getting up, he knew he wasn't as strong as Alois. The boy seemed livid and somehow, these dancer's muscles had more strength than they let on.

"He isn't!" Alois protested. "You don't know him. He's a kind man and I want you to keep your fingers to yourself. I don't know what happened in the restroom after Maurice told him you were there, but if I find out that you as much as looked at him the wrong way-"

"What?" Ciel interjected, horrified, repulsed and very livid. "This was Maurice's fault?"

"No, in the end it's _your_ fault! You can't just waltz in and try to lay claim on _my_ Claude."

Ciel scowled. "Excuse me for rousing your caretaker's interest. I don't want anything from him. Maybe you should put in more of an effort, though, so that he stays with you instead of trying to get to me." Or his cousin, for that matter.

Alois fell quiet, balling his hands into fists until his knuckles turned white. "You know what, fuck you. Fuck you and your family funds and your… your talent and your pretty-boy-looks. You think you're so great for bearing the Phantomhive name and having Sebastian and the others all over you. And now you think you must also have Claude, acting as if it's him who started this, but I tell you what: It's not working!"

"I wouldn't want it to work," Ciel finally said and inwardly shuddered at the memory of the minutes in the restroom. "He's yours, okay? I never initiated anything and I wish to keep it that way."

Alois looked as if he might use his fists now instead of pushing Ciel. Finding that this was the time to roll his eyes and leave – he didn't feel like being pushed around or wasting another word on Alois' thick skull -, Ciel turned and headed for the kitchen. Just when he wanted to close the kitchen door, he heard the sniffling.

_Oh, you can't be serious, _was the first thought that entered his brain. The second, not friendlier at all, was _That went fast; he should do something about those moods_.

The boy stood there in the doorframe to the kitchen, listening to the very silent sniffling of Alois. Claude, of course – and Ciel would have disapproved, anyway – didn't magically appear, even though he should be the one to fix what he'd brought into disarray in the first place. This, on the other hand, left Ciel as the one to at least make Alois stop sobbing. However, Ciel must have to be the worst consoler in history, having absolutely no clue about how to make somebody stop crying. Besides, he didn't even _like_ Alois.

He went into the kitchen, got the plate with the biscuits, and returned to the corridor where Alois was leaning against the wall, his head bowed. Ciel awkwardly cleared his throat which caused the young teen to jump, look up, and then angrily wipe at his face. With pursed lips, Ciel approached the blond boy, weary of being touched again in any way, and sat down on the floor two feet away from the other male. "What on Earth are you crying about?" he asked, wincing inwardly as soon as the words were out. He was even worse than he'd thought.

But he had the biscuits, so maybe Alois wouldn't throw a tantrum just yet. He seemed more occupied with crying, anyway.

"Fuck you, Phantomhive."

Ciel puckered his lips in displeasure, something that he stopped as soon as it reminded him of his Aunt Frances. He took a biscuit and ate it in silence. "If it's something I said," he started, "then let me know what it was that I said and I'll consider apologising to you."

Alois was glaring daggers at him by now. "How dare you- Do you actually think it's you who triggered this?"

"It's a logical conclusion," Ciel replied, repressing the urge to tell Alois to stop crying. Somehow the teen managed both the glaring and the crying, and it wasn't only an unpleasant but also annoying sight.

"Well you're wrong. It's not about you, it's about-" Alois stopped, groaned and furiously wiped at his eyes again.

"Sit," Ciel commanded, sounding sterner than intended. But the older male sat down promptly, and when Ciel offered him a biscuit, he took it without further ado. "It's about Claude, isn't it?"

Alois nodded unhappily, letting his shoulders hang. "I'm just scared he'll lose interest because of people like you or Sebastian. I don't even know what he sees in you two, I really don't, and I'm trying so hard to understand it."

"I…" Ciel swallowed before changing the words completely. "It isn't me that he finds interesting, it's just Sebastian. Family problems, you see..."

Alois stared at him. "Claude has got family problems?"

"No. Yes." Ciel couldn't help but frown at the blond, wondering how he couldn't have at least noticed the animosity between Claude and Sebastian. "You should probably ask him. You're more of a family member than me; I think you have a right to know."

Alois blinked, showing a mix of bewilderment and displeasure. "Even if he tells me, it won't change the fact that he's losing interest in me. He'll leave me."

Ciel had already lost count over how many things sounded wrong in what Alois had just said. "I thought he was a kind man?"

"He is."

Ciel wanted to laugh and put as much sarcasm into it as possible, but he didn't. "Then he won't leave you."

"That's what he's doing right now." Alois sighed. "I'm plain in his eyes because I'm not Edgar. Or Sebastian. Or-" He huffed and grabbed another biscuit.

"Maybe you're just imagining things," Ciel suggested with a drawl. "You're reading too much into it."

For this he received an angry look. "Are you implying that I'm mental?"

Any other day, yes, Ciel would have said, but he simply shook his head. "Try to rouse Claude's interest. I'd honestly be happy when he turns away from using me."

Alois scowled at this, but Ciel refused to elaborate, choosing to eat another biscuit instead. He found it strange that he had actually given in and was now sitting next to the blond teen and talking to him, however awkward the conversation was. But now that Alois had started speaking, he filled the silence easily.

"Claude is a kind man," he murmured. "He and my father were friends, and after Mum also died – she was hanging on the whiskey bottle, what else did she expect? -, he took me in. Saved me from some really filthy people." He played with the hem of his thigh-high woollen socks. "I've got nothing to give but myself. I'd give every single shred of my being to him just to show him how grateful I am."

Ciel schooled his expression into indifference. There were some underlining tones he didn't want to think about. Especially not when it came to 'filthy people'. Ciel had this light feeling in the back of his mind that Alois wasn't referring to public authority. "You like him."

"So much," Alois burst out, mood suddenly completely on the other side of where it had been before. He giggled. "But he knows that already." His chest heaved as h took a deep breath and smiled and the dimply lit corridor. Then he glanced at Ciel. "You're not that bad. I'll forgive you for trying to steal Claude away." Before Ciel could interject, Alois went on: "But if you think I'm not going to keep an eye on you, you're mistaken. Apart from that, we should start over."

"Over my dead body-"

"Great! Friends!" Alois hugged him. Ciel grimaced, hating himself for having conceded to his conscience in the first place. He would never console Alois again. (The fact that Alois reminded him of a male Lizzie with worrying mood swings did not help in this situation.)

He was saved by the opening living-room door through which Undertaker stuck his head. "We're done discussing. Alois, you might have to spend the night here if Edgar continues not answering his phone. I hope you don't mind. Gregory will also stay, if you want."

Alois nodded, in a way better mood than before. "But why isn't Edgar answering his phone?"

"Busy," Gregory's bland voice sounded from inside the living-room. The two boys got up and entered. "He's still with Lawrence… maybe."

"I'll call Lawrence, then. Do you have his number, dear?"

"I don't," Gregory answered. "But he has mine."

"That doesn't help."

Gregory's lips twitched. "I know." He cocked his head to the side in thought. "Why don't you ask Claude to have a talk with Edgar?"

The photographer's expression lightened up. "A marvellous idea. I shall call him right away. You keep on trying to reach Edgar."

Gregory didn't seem happy about that.

As if having waited for people to start calling others, Ciel's own mobile phone rang, the display reading 'Anne'. The boy realized that it was rather late again and that she had come back from work to find the Phantomhive estate void of her nephew. He went to the entrance hall, standing by the shoes and listening to Undertaker's chatter in the kitchen. "Yes, Aunt Anne?"

"_Where. Are. You."_

"At Undertaker's," Ciel replied honestly. "With Alois, Claude's ward," he added. "Remember?"

"_Do you know what time it is?"_ Now that Ciel had mentioned Alois (the boy did have his use, it seemed), she sounded friendlier than before. _"I hope you're not making a habit out of this, coming back home late in the evenings."_

"I'm still on holidays," Ciel defended.

Sebastian appeared in the hallway, spotting Ciel as if he'd already known where to find him. He smiled and came over, causing Ciel to instinctively look him up and down. When the boy realized what he was doing, he averted his gaze. He didn't need his eye(s) to know that Sebastian was smirking by now.

"_If this becomes a habit, it won't matter whether it's during the holidays or not that you stay out of the house for so long,"_ Angelina retorted at this moment, but Ciel was barely listening. He felt two hands on his upper arms, warmth seeping through the fabric of the boy's pullover. Sebastian was really getting used to invading Ciel's personal space. He wasn't sure whether he liked this new development or not. What he did know was that he couldn't care less as long as it was Sebastian who was touching him.

"_Is Sebastian there?"_ Aunt Anne asked.

Ciel blinked. "Yes, he is."

"_You're coming home immediately. I'll send Bard to pick you up."_

Surprised at the sudden coldness in his aunt's voice, Ciel was rendered speechless. "… I beg your pardon?"

"_I don't want you to hang around him the whole time, Ciel. It's not healthy." _Angelina cleared her throat. _"I told you that he and Ash could be dangerous. I'm sure they aren't innocent people."_

"Aunt Anne, it was just a statue-"

"_No, it was a sign!"_ A pause. "_I'm sorry, honey. It's okay if you're at Undertaker's or if you're out with Alois and your other friends, but just stay away from Sebastian. He's… ominous."_

"Whatever happened to your crush on him?" Ciel asked bluntly.

"_Don't be silly. Bard is on his way."_

"I'll wait." He hung up.

"I assume this is Ash's fault?" Sebastian asked.

Ciel snorted. "In a way. She doesn't want me to see you anymore. You're not healthy."

"I never knew that having you around involved you eating me," the artist said.

Ciel made a dismissing gesture before he turned to see Gregory approaching the kitchen where Undertaker was. Even though Gregory usually spoke in low tones, Ciel could hear him well.

"He still doesn't answer."

"Huh, funny," Undertaker said. "Claude said he'd just talked with Lawrence because of fashion-related things. Lawrence is at home already."

At this, Ciel felt a pang of dread in his stomach. He hoped that he was just mistaken but Edgar wouldn't answer his phone the next day, either.

Or the day after…

Lawrence had passed by at the model's apartment (penthouse) and found it empty. Claude would try to reach him through his phone but he only got the voice mail.

The police were called the second day but just like Maurice, Edgar had vanished.

Quickly, silently.

Easily.

* * *

**_Those that haven't left a prompt yet and would like to throw one in are very welcome to do so! =D_**


	17. Interest IV

**Chapter 15**

When Ciel returned to school after the holidays, England's fashion scene was beginning to worry about the two models Edgar Redmond and Maurice Cole. Because Claude had cancelled their appointments for the next three months, people were wondering what had happened to them. Of course, Claude wouldn't give a proper answer, which didn't surprise Sebastian in the least. His cousin should have considered choosing another job apart from designing. He was good at lying without actually naming the lie.

Ciel texted Sebastian during lessons, which the artist did not approve, but since he himself had little to do, he of course indulged and always replied. It seemed that rumours about the two models were spreading. Journalists had noticed that Edgar wasn't to be seen in London city anymore. People wanted to know what was wrong. They started speculating and comically, the rumour of abduction, started as a joke, made its rounds.

"They are both very ill and want to take their time off work," Claude said in an interview. These days it didn't seem as if journalists were invading his shops because of his much loved collections, but because of his best models. He himself never looked too happy about it.

Sebastian found it hilarious.

Ciel, who had become unwillingly popular because of his connections to well-known artists, actors and models, had a tough time making up lies that would fit with what Claude said. Alois, it seemed, was more of help than expected. Nevertheless, from what Sebastian read, Ciel wasn't too happy about it. Alois had this nasty habit of clinging.

And so it happened that the young musician marched into Sebastian's house one day without the artist knowing it, sat on the windowsill of Sebastian's studio and let out a very long breath of frustration. The artist stood in front of his charcoal drawing, dumbfounded.

"Alois is even more annoying than when he hated me."

Sebastian blinked. "How did you get into my house?"

Ciel gave him a slightly incredulous look – 'How dare you interrupt me because of such mundane things?' – before showing him the key with which he'd come in. "Undertaker picked us up from school today. This way I got to borrow the spare key and make my aunt believe that I'm at his place with Alois. Alois, though, is only there to practise his little new dance. For some reason, he doesn't want Claude to see him."

Sebastian nodded. "You don't mind if I take the key now?"

"I do, actually." Ciel smirked. "After all, it's Undertaker's. He loves breaking into your house."

Sebastian could only frown at this. "Does he now?" He found that he could draw easier now that Ciel was there.

"Alois wanted to come too as soon as I got the keys. Be happy that he found it more important to impress Claude with his silly dance."

"Oh, I am," Sebastian muttered.

They fell into companionable silence as Ciel chose to look out the window at the snow-covered grounds. Once in a while, when the maids were close enough, the pair could hear something shatter or fall, usually accompanied by a shriek.

"Why did you hire such useless maids?" Ciel inquired after a particularly loud thump.

"I can't clean this monster of a house all by myself," Sebastian answered.

The boy appeared to almost comment on that, but instead, there was only a light but amused shake of his head before he reverted to admiring the snow outside. The artist could feel a slight but certain nervousness emitting from the younger male. Was there something Ciel wanted to tell him?

Sebastian's new love came through the open door and jumped on the boy's lap, purring softly. Ciel grimaced. "I might not visit you anymore because of this cat."

"Her name is Ran."

"Whatever." Ciel regarded the cat with slight disapproval in his gaze.

"Does you visiting me have a reason?" Sebastian finally asked, feeling that he needed to address this if he wanted to know about it.

After a moment of contemplation, the boy nudged Ran until she jumped off his lap in frustration and approached Sebastian with a certain determination in his gaze. Sebastian put away the piece of charcoal in his hands and wiped them on his old trousers, waiting for the younger male to speak.

"You said you wouldn't force me to do anything," Ciel began slowly. Sebastian nodded, wondering where this was going.

"That you were basically alright with me keeping secrets to myself."

"Which, I assure you, is still the case," Sebastian interjected kindly, but on the inside he was of a very different opinion. He wanted to know every single thing about the boy, and he wouldn't stop until he did.

Ciel, unaware of his thoughts, nodded as if trying to reassure himself. He stood regally, proud, but there was a certain glint of uneasiness in his visible eye that Sebastian sought out very quickly.

"I want to show you something," the boy finally said.

Everything in Sebastian hummed in anticipation. "Okay."

Ciel looked at a spot behind him. "Please close the door."

The artist blinked. "Of course." He did as he was told.

Biting his lower lip, Ciel raised his hands behind his head where his eye patch was secured. Sebastian held his breath. "You will probably be repulsed, but I know you've shown great interest in my eye. Before you keep annoying me about it, I'll show it to you."

Sebastian nodded, curiosity gaining an upper hand. He wanted to cover the sliver of distance between them with one single step and rip the eye patch off the boy's face. He wanted to drink in the sight of whatever lay beneath it.

Ciel loosened the knot and the eye patch fell to the ground silently. He didn't make a move to brush the hair out of his face that covered the eye now, so Sebastian moved closer, doing it instead. He saw a fine net of scars, jagged and long, some of them looking like they had resulted from fire or something very hot at least. They moved across the boy's eye lid that didn't close properly, ruined the shape of the boy's eyebrow and disturbing the softness of Ciel's skin.

"Open it," Sebastian murmured. He hoped that Ciel would allow him the sight that he had denied Claude.

He did.

The eye was of a dull, dead grey, fixed in its socket and staring lifelessly ahead. Feeling the boy's obvious discomfort, Sebastian made no move to reassure him at first. He was too preoccupied. This eye was an imperfection that made Ciel so much more vulnerable than Sebastian would have guessed. He could almost feel the pain the boy had gone through. Rage rose inside him, acidic and pure. Should he ever find those who had done this to Ciel…

The boy bent at his knees, perhaps trying to pick up the eye patch. Sebastian, his hand around Ciel's chin, kept him right where he was. "What happened?""

Ciel gave in to the request rather quickly. "They wanted to make me scream again. Loved me for the voice and tears." Now he was looking away. "They used their knives and boiling water on me. I'm sure the latter wasn't only water."

Sebastian felt sick to his stomach. When the younger male bent to pick up the eye patch, the artist let him.

"It's revolting, isn't it?" Ciel looked at him now, the dead eye seeming to accuse him of something Sebastian couldn't wrap his mind around. "The eye, I mean."

The bitter tone in Ciel's voice inspired an idea in Sebastian's head. He shook his head, trying on a kind smile. Inside, he was still raging at the people who dared disfigure his muse's eye. "The only revolting thing about this are those who inflicted this upon you. I am not disgusted by it in any way."

"Neither was Claude," Ciel said dryly. "Seems to be a Michaelis thing."

"If you would just stop associating me with my family, I'd be very happy-" Sebastian interrupted himself. This wasn't about him. "The eye is not disgusting, Ciel." As if to prove it, he lifted a hand to Ciel's face, thumb caressing the molten skin in the corner of Ciel's eye. The boy flinched violently and took one step back. Sebastian let him regain his personal space, quietly watching him. To be honest, he felt rejected. It was the last thing he wanted when it came to his source of inspiration. Ciel once said he didn't trust him. While this must have changed since then, Sebastian still felt that he didn't have all of the boy's trust. But he wanted it, he needed it, he needed the boy to give in.

It wouldn't work, though, if he still thought that there was somebody out there waiting for him. There probably was. Who said that Edgar's and Maurice's disappearance weren't connected to the same guy who had been around three years ago? Ciel must be terrified now that the models were gone, without any trace whatsoever. Sebastian could understand his fear, but his art couldn't. Wouldn't. If the police didn't find out what had happened to the models, Ciel would be unable to relax, unable to trust Sebastian completely.

Ciel put the eye patch back on, his single blue eye taking in Sebastian's latest charcoal art. It was a robin resting on a pile of black and white feathers. Regarding the unfinished drawing and then the other works hanging and lying around in the whole room, Sebastian's eye caught the sketch of a dragon. Suddenly struck by an idea, he went over to the small paper and picked it up. He had intended to make a larger painting out of it as it was a commission from one of his benefactors.

Now though, this little dragon served a very different purpose. How could he have forgotten? He still was a Michaelis in blood, after all. He was still demon spawn.

And there were certain people who would recall whose son he was.

"You need to tell me who it was," Sebastian said. "Do you remember what the remaining person looked like?" He dearly hoped that this man was dead like he once told Ciel. The boy, though, was obviously in doubt.

"I don't want to talk about this," Ciel murmured, his eyebrows drawing together in what seemed to be his typical annoyance at the artist.

"I might have means to find him."

Ciel perked up. "Didn't you say –"

"I know I assumed he was dead," Sebastian cut in. "And to be honest, I don't think that whatever happened to Edgar and Maurice is connected to what happened to you."

The boy slightly cocked his head to the side. Sebastian had to bite his tongue to keep the untimely comment in. "What are you trying to accomplish?"

"I want you to sleep better at night." Sebastian smirked.

Ciel blushed. "I sleep very well."

"_I_ had the feeling that your nightmares are regular visitors."

When Ciel didn't deny it, the artist went on: "I'll have somebody look this over. Sometimes criminals are only found by ... more shady people."

Stunned silence greeted him. "You've got connections to the underground?" Ciel finally asked.

"My father did."

Ciel nodded. "And William?"

Sebastian almost gritted his teeth at the mention of his cousin's name. "He didn't want to work with them." The remarkable thing about this was that William had actually managed to _keep them off_. Saying no was easy, but avoiding the backlash so expertly required a certain amount of talent. "I know that my father worked together with an 'organisation' to keep rivals away mostly, just like my grandfather did." And his father and so on. It seemed that William was the first to run his business without asking the underground to play his watchdog.

"Hm," Ciel huffed. "My research didn't tell me that."

"Of course it wouldn't." Sebastian shrugged, but then he remembered that he was now balancing on a very thin rope. "I hope you don't feel threatened now."

"_Threatened_?" Ciel repeated, almost incredulously. (What Sebastian heard in this was 'I'm bloody frightened, you dimwit!') "Of course not. You can't scare me with your father's goons. However, if they can provide us some insight, then I don't mind." A hard glint, seemingly out of nowhere, came to his eye. "And when they have the means to find that cultist, we can have the police put him behind bars."

"I'll have them see whether there is any connection between your case and the other. If they are in a good mood, they will help Maurice and Edgar."

Ciel raised an eyebrow. "You seem certain of this."

"I am certain that they will help if they know something." Sebastian smiled.

Obviously leading a small war with himself, Ciel finally gave in. "I don't know what he looks like. The kidnappers actually brought me to a trader but didn't make it far afterwards. They all died in some kind of fight. The trader was killed after he brought them to the cult. I heard the gunshot. The leader was the one to whom I was handed over, but he never spoke in front of me and he always wore a large hood that would cover his face. I've no idea what he looks like."

Sebastian caught himself staring, completely at a loss for words. Ciel had been traded and seen many terrible things. It only made him want to find this remaining bastard more.

"It seems I've said too much," Ciel said, his gaze almost challenging. Sebastian felt an uncomfortable pang in his chest, but didn't dwell on it.

"You haven't. What you said was helpful. We might have a chance to find a few candidates."

With a nod, Ciel went to the door. "Now that we've discussed this, I should take my leave."

The abrupt change of subject rescued Sebastian from saying something wrong. However, he didn't like how stern Ciel's voice was once again, how he wouldn't meet the artist's eye. He wanted to keep Ciel right where he was, never let him out of his mansion again and have him completely to himself.

Then he remembered the child's aunt. With an almost-groan he said, "I almost forgot about this. You'll have to be picked up from his place, right?"

Ciel nodded as the artist approached him. Without warning, Sebastian pulled him close, something that had Ciel strain against his grip for the shortest of moments. The artist, feeling smug, lowered his voice a little. "The eye is nothing you should be ashamed of. Wear it as a sign of strength. You're still alive, aren't you?"

Ciel rolled his visible eye and pushed Sebastian away. As the boy went to the stairs, Sebastian barely heard the 'We'll see for how long.'

He didn't comment on it.

The walk to Undertaker's house was quiet. Sebastian was relieved by the fact that Ciel, while wringing his gloved hands, didn't seem distanced from Sebastian any more than he'd been before. It was a beginning. He didn't know why the boy's aunt had forbidden any kind of contact between the two of them, and he also didn't want her to use drastic methods once she found out that Ciel sidestepped her orders, but he couldn't help but smile internally at who had more control over the boy. Ciel was as drawn to him as he was to Ciel. The boy apparently had his own agenda now that Sebastian had mentioned his father's connections. The artist didn't know whether they were still around to begin with, whether they had as much knowledge of underground happenings as they did before, but he would address this issue in due time.

Undertaker let them enter with his usual broad smile. Sebastian couldn't help but think that the particular Michaelis tradition to interact with criminals was something the mortician didn't know about. He didn't intend to tell him.

"The ballerina is in the living-room, if you're looking for her," Undertaker said, giggling at having referred to Alois as a girl. Sweet classical music floated out of the adjoining room, and Ciel seemed to know the piece.

"We're not," Sebastian assured. "I just came to bring Ciel. He might be picked up soon."

When his spare keys were given back to his friend (acquaintance), Undertaker giggled a bit more disturbingly at having them back. Ciel left them to peek into the living-room.

"Anything new about Edgar?" the artist asked Gregory who was sitting in the kitchen and munching on Undertaker's biscuits.

The young photographer lifted his head, a biscuit hanging from his lips, and gave a negative hum.

Leaning against the kitchen's doorframe, Sebastian kept his eyes on Ciel who was watching a dancing Alois. "No clue whatsoever?"

"None."

"We'll just have to wait and hope," Undertaker said, twirling a lock of silver hair with his bony finger. That was the end of the subject.

Feeling the need to distract himself, Sebastian followed Ciel into the living-room. All the furniture had been moved to one side of the room while the classical music came from the TV's stereos. Alois, clad in leggings and a very loose shirt (it was the least revealing he'd worn in a very long time if the shirt didn't constantly reveal his naked shoulders) was sitting on the floor in a perfect split, his toes pointed. Ciel walked around him. "I hope you aren't dancing Romeo."

Alois snorted and leaned forward – this boy certainly was flexible. "It's Tybalt, actually." He grinned at them. "The premier will be this February. Grell arranged some tickets for you guys."

"Through William?" Sebastian asked.

"Probably." Alois continued his stretching routine with ease. Then he got up and went to his sports bag, taking off his shirt without any qualms whatsoever. Sebastian turned away immediately. Since he'd spent a few nights at Undertaker's house, Alois obviously felt comfortable enough to undress in the living-room with semi-strangers present and with uncovered windows, as well as Gregory entering the room to set down a bottle of water next to the teen. Before Sebastian left his place by the couch next to Alois' improvised dressing corner, he caught a whiff of the boy's deodorant. This had to be the most girlish scent on the market.

"Claude likes it," the teen replied upon being asked about the fragrance.

Once again, Claude had proven his lack of taste. And Alois his lack of independency.

As Alois took off his shoes, he frowned at them. "I could need a new pair."

"Do dress yourself a bit faster," Ciel said.

The boy turned around, in the middle of pulling off his leggings, and when he finished, he threw them at Ciel. "You know you like it."

"Most definitely not," Ciel replied, sounding very annoyed as he removed the pair of leggings from his shoulder. He shot Sebastian a look that clearly asked 'You see what I'm talking about? He always does this!' Sebastian shrugged with a smirk and turned to look out the window.

"How's Claude?" Ciel asked. He sounded (and looked, Sebastian confirmed after a glance to the side) like someone who only asked a question because they knew that the other person liked to talk about the topic. The artist silently wondered what had conspired between them a couple weeks ago. Alois had somehow gotten the musician's number and had just started annoying him. While Ciel had never been happy about it, he had conceded.

"Cranky," Alois replied blandly. "It's understandable, maybe. But he's still got me, you know?" When Sebastian heard a zipper being pulled up, he figured it was safe to turn around again. He was not interested in seeing Alois' body at all.

The blond worried his lip in thought as he pulled up his woollen socks. This time, they were violet. "Come to think of it, Edgar and Maurice's disappearance gives me a certain benefit." He grinned devilishly at Ciel. "Now that they aren't available, I can model for Claude."

"Alois," Ciel said blandly, "you shouldn't say such things."

The teen snorted, not feeling bad about his words in the least. "Oops."

The doorbell rang. Undertaker answered and Sebastian saw Ciel's body freeze when the cheery voice of Angelina Durless reached his ears. Giving the boy an encouraging pat on the head (which had Ciel scowl at him) Sebastian muttered a goodbye. Ciel nodded at Alois who waved cheerily back before leaving the room. As the boy rounded the corner, Sebastian looked at his retreating form longer than he could actually see him.

Feeling another person's gaze on him, he turned to Alois who was now grinning widely and knowingly at him. He raised an eyebrow, mouthing a "What?" at the younger male. Alois chuckled lowly and chose to stretch out on the floor like a cat.

"Aunt Anne," Sebastian could hear Ciel say outside. "I didn't expect you to show up."

"Of course I'm showing up! I have to make sure you're there, don't I?"

"Your trust in me is very reassuring and comforting."

"I know. Come on, let's go. I hope he wasn't a bother to you."

"Not at all," Undertaker said, giggling. "He's easy to get along with. And he keeps Alois in check."

They said their goodbyes and the entrance door closed with a click.

Alois lay on the floor and giggled. "Undertaker," Sebastian called into the hallway, "you never told me you were contagious."

"I am?" Undertaker asked. "Wonderful news! I should go and spread the laughter."

Before he could go on his self-imposed mission, the doorbell rang again. Sebastian, who had been about to leave anyway, answered the door. He froze.

Claude was standing right there, looking as if he might throw up now that he'd seen his cousin. Sebastian honestly didn't feel any different, but his predominant urge to hit the designer also needed to be suppressed. "Claude," he began, smiling as pleasantly as possible in this situation, "came to pick up your pet?"

"Y-… Alois isn't my pet, he's my ward." Claude glared at him. It seemed that every time they saw each other, things just got worse between them.

"Of course." Sebastian turned to the corridor and called the teen. Alois approached them fast and with a big smile spread across his face. In all honesty, Sebastian would never understand how Claude managed this kid.

"Claude!" Alois cried with glee, actually jumping at his caretaker, wrapping his legs around Claude's middle and hugging the man.

Claude hadn't looked at the boy once. His gaze was still locked with Sebastian's, and catching Alois, it seemed, succeeded because it had turned into a habit. Without any comment whatsoever, he set Alois down after probably having counted the seconds. Alois gave him a confused look when he finally noticed that he was being ignored. What he did next surprised the artist.

He cleared his throat noisily, calling for the attention of both cousins but only receiving Sebastian's. Then he turned to Claude, one frail hand drawing patterns on Claude's coat and declared, "I had a very nice day with Ciel… and Sebastian."

This, at last, caught Claude's attention. Alois smiled widely when the designer finally deemed him worthy of his gaze. "We had a lot of fun."

"And how was your day?" Sebastian asked with a smile as Alois quickly put on his coat. "I'm sure it must be hard without your pretty faces to use."

Claude was boiling on the inside now, Sebastian could see it as if somebody had turned the designer inside out. "You have reached a new point on the downward spiral of your level."

"I'm trying my best to be like you." Sebastian smirked. "Is it working? Unfortunately I don't have a knife at hand at the moment so I can't demonstrate how well I've incorporated you."

He interrupted himself when he was subjected to a kiss on the cheek from Alois. His smile froze.

Claude, on the other hand, seemed impossibly livid. He got a hold of Alois' arm and roughly pulled him against his body, yanking the boy's sports bag from his fingers. Alois adjusted easily, appearing to be very happy at being manhandled, and cuddled his guardian. "Thank you for the wonderful day!" he said to Sebastian.

Something twitched around Claude's eye. "Don't say such things."

Sebastian waved cheerily, secretly stunned at Alois' strange behaviour but enjoying the scene at the very same time. Now that they were leaving, Alois waved back, still in his bizarre game, and Claude, short of exploding, yanked down his ward's arm.

When they were out of sight, Sebastian also headed home. The night was still young and he would use it to re-establish certain contacts.

* * *

_Feel free to leave your thoughts on the chapter! Bonus points if you can guess who's the gangster._

**_New chapter MAYBE coming this Saturday._**


	18. Interest V

**Chapter 16**

They met in a café.

In retrospect, Ciel found that this must have been one of his most stupid ideas. He had persuaded Sebastian into taking him to the meeting, which Ciel now regretted. He didn't want to have anything to do with shady people from England's underground. He really didn't. But now that he and Sebastian were entering the café, fleeing wouldn't only be embarrassing, it wasn't even an option in the first place.

He would be damned if he left now.

Upon their entry, Sebastian spotted somebody and carefully stepped in front of Ciel, partially hiding him from view. The boy didn't understand this gesture, but guessing that this could be a Michaelis thing, he just let Sebastian lead him to a table at the far end of the café. The shop was almost filled to the brim, which made Ciel wonder why they would choose a location where they could be easily overheard. On the other hand, a full café provided many witnesses should something happen…

He eyed the entrance door one last time.

"Sebastian!" somebody called when they approached the barely secluded corner. A Chinese man got up from his seat and greeted the artist with a friendly handshake. "How long has it been, my friend? Ten years?"

_Well_, Ciel thought, _he doesn't look like a criminal at all._

"Probably," Sebastian replied with a smile. "It's good to see you again, Lau."

"Certainly. I'm glad to see that the true blood of a Michaelis heir runs in your veins." Lau opened his eyes to regard Ciel. "Who's this?"

"Somebody I'd like to talk to you about."

Lau's thin eyebrows touched his hairline. "Sure. Sit, sit." When they did as they were told, the man continued regarding Ciel. A waitress left and took their orders – Ciel didn't want anything – before leaving again. "You do look familiar. Have we met?"

"I don't think so," Ciel answered.

"Maybe you remember him because of the tragedy just three years ago?" Sebastian helped along. "He was subjected to human trafficking." He lowered his voice even further, causing Lau to lean in a little, but not too much to make it obvious. "I know your family supervised such things."

"We still do," Lau said in the same low tone. "Once in a while. Not often. It's better not to get too involved."

"Could it be that you remember him from one of the auctions?"

Lau smiled at Ciel while answering Sebastian's question. "Children are no rarity."

The boy leaned back in his seat. He hadn't felt that uncomfortable for a while.

"He says that the trader was shot after delivering him to a cult. Do you happen to know something about that?"

"Hm, sometimes traders disappear. It happens. There was this guy who had a deal with some kind of fanatics. Word has it that he had five men killed for the little imp he brought along." Lau blinked, then he chuckled. "That was you, right? The imp, I mean, not the trader." He hummed in thought. "Because that would be quite strange."

"What happened to him?" Sebastian asked.

"I really should have bought that car," Lau suddenly said, causing Ciel to frown.

Sebastian immediately went along, diving into a quiet conversation about cars and their prices and which kind of car they could afford with their budgets. A waitress brought two cups of coffee for them, and Lau fell silent until she was gone for sure. "He disappeared," he finally said, answering Sebastian's previous question. "If the kid says he died, he died."

"Have you ever seen one of those… fanatics?" Sebastian asked.

"There must have been one at the auction that night."

"Were you present?"

Lau smiled. "I was at many auctions."

"Just answer the question, Lau."

The Chinese man nodded.

Ciel wanted to get up, leave the café, and scream. He wanted to hide, he wanted Sebastian to take him away, and he wanted Sebastian to tell him that nothing would happen as long as he was there, he wanted Lau to continue so that this last man could be put behind bars. While Lau had just been a supervisor, he should pay for this, too. Everybody involved should.

And yet, no urge was stronger than the one to just turn around and close his eyes. Lau had connections to the whole Michaelis family. Sebastian was a Michaelis. Making Lau pay would mean making Sebastian pay.

Ciel didn't want that.

"Would you please describe the man?" Sebastian asked softly. "Lau can have his people look into this for us, see if he's still around."

Ciel didn't know a thing about the man in question. He'd been tall and appeared quite lean despite the coat he'd always been wearing. He'd smelled of blood, Ciel was sure of this, for the man had pulled him close once or twice and the scent had overpowered the man's cologne. The scent had been very strong on his hands which were rough and large with long fingers. Musician's fingers, maybe. While the leader had never touched Ciel inappropriately, he'd cupped Ciel's face in his hands, traced the line of the child's eyebrows, cheekbone, lips and throat.

The boy shuddered inwardly at the memories, fear and resentment raging inside his chest as he told Lau what he remembered, leaving out the bit about the leader touching him. The Chinese nodded quietly. "Sounds like any other man I interact with," he finally said, which must have been a nice way of telling Ciel that this would be going nowhere.

Sebastian would have none of it. "Try to find him through the Phantomhives' past. I'm sure they had enough rivals."

"That route seems to be the most logical," Lau agreed. "We'll do what we can."

"Also," Sebastian continued, "do try to find out about the models."

"Models?" Lau asked.

"That pair from the Faustus brand."

"What's wrong with them?"

Sebastian gave the man a blank look. "You can't be serious."

"I am."

The artist sighed. "The police assume that they've been abducted. Try to find a connection between those two and that cultist. It could have been him."

"It could have been everyone else."

Sebastian nodded. "That is true."

Lau sighed, though he sounded rather happy. "My people will try to gather information. We'll stay in contact."

"It appears so."

The Chinese smiled. "There is no need for suspicion, my friend. My family has always been loyal to the line of Michaelis heirs. It's a tradition that I honour. And to me, you still are the heir."

Sebastian nodded. "I believe you, Lau." He laid a hand on Ciel's head, steering Lau's attention to the boy. "But I must also tell you not to harm him. I shall remain as quiet as a grave."

"Sounds like a deal to me," Lau said and shrugged.

The two men bid their goodbyes and Lau left first after Sebastian had offered to pay for his coffee. The artist sighed, and then looked at Ciel. "Hey, why so tense?" He brushed his knuckles along the nape of the boy's neck.

Ciel shook his head.

"I hope I didn't say too much. Lau needed the information."

"You gave him my family name."

"It's nothing he wouldn't have found out on his own. Better I give him something to work with." Sebastian paused. "Let me call Undertaker. He'll drive you home for me..."

"No," Ciel said. "We're going to your place."

Sebastian blinked. "Your aunt-"

"You're the only one who cares about her," the boy suddenly snapped. "We're going to your place and that's final."

The artist sighed. "Alright. Let's get in the car."

Ciel nodded and left the café, heading for the vehicle. Sebastian's presence behind him was like an unbearable heat threatening to swallow him whole. Despite his young age, Ciel was quite aware of his surroundings. He was able to spot changes in humans that he interacted with on a regular basis if he cared enough to look. He knew that his aunt was afraid of something and that this fear caused her to decide quite illogical things. The two paintings from Sebastian were now in the cellar, still in the cellar, because of her strange fear of the artist's works. She was also wary of Undertaker, seeing that the photographer was Sebastian's friend, but it seemed that she trusted her nephew enough to come home should Sebastian visit the photographer.

Ciel vaguely felt bad for lying to her. He'd told her again that he was at Undertaker's to meet up with Gregory who strangely never left Undertaker's house even if people claimed that he had his own flat. But he couldn't be bothered with his aunt's paranoia, and thinking that it would soon fade, he had decided to stay in contact with the artist.

However, there was also a change in Sebastian, one that he faintly dreaded and found curious at the same time. If one would ask, Ciel couldn't tell that person on which base he and Sebastian were. He didn't even want to know. The lines had blurred during their third meeting when Ciel had started dressing up and playing the violin for him, when Ciel had started telling him more than his friends and family knew and when he'd received similar words from Sebastian. Their relationship held firm against any kind of definition, choosing to remain unnamed and hard to grasp. Ciel would have called it a work relationship, and while he didn't get any money for standing still for hours, Sebastian earned his with the results. However, they'd been too personal from the moment Sebastian let Ciel enter his house, when he saw Ciel without his eye patch back then, when he wanted to know things about the boy and when he added the flames to the boy's painting. Now, after research and Sebastian's own reports of his past, Ciel was quite sure that they'd never been on a 'work' basis to begin with. The artist had made sure of that with his incessant prodding and his friendly smiles.

Maybe they were friends, Ciel assumed, but then again he found that Sebastian was too protective of him, shielding him even from his own friends, discreetly keeping him in sight, making sure to be close to the boy and actually pulling strings in the underground to assure his muse's safety… Ciel would have been annoyed, but he found it strangely flattering and new. While his aunt also was protective of him, it was overwhelming, annoying and different from Sebastian's careful behaviour, how the artist seemed ready to adjust should Ciel back away, how he was ready to wait, to pause the game for Ciel to take a break.

Yet it was quite clear that Sebastian held the reigns. He could try to stay in Ciel's comfort zone, yet he also seemed to be trying to stretch it, to add to it, namely himself, it seemed. Sebastian was trying to get to him and stay where Ciel held his feelings for other people neatly stored and safely locked away. He was the one to choose the pace in the end, and Ciel sure hadn't missed all those touches, soft, light and warm against his skin, comforting and assuring and gaining in frequency. Wherever their relationship had been at this point, Ciel was sure it wouldn't stay there. It would shift and change, but he couldn't predict the outcome. Maybe Sebastian could and this only made the boy's worries multiply. It was scary that Sebastian seemed to know so much more about him than Ciel himself.

The car drive to the artist's house was quiet; Ciel was lost in his musings and Sebastian must be in a similar mood because he didn't even try to start a conversation.

He stayed at Sebastian's house until seven o'clock, which was the time during which his aunt would come back home. The musician and the artist had been spending their time in the music room, Ciel sitting on the piano and experimenting with new melodies while Sebastian had been drawing Lau's portrait. "It's easy," he'd said, "I know his face and I've taped the conversation with my phone. Should they lay hand on you, I'll take both to the police."

"It will get you in trouble too," Ciel had replied, looking up from Sebastian's piano.

The artist had eyed him almost carefully. "Well, I think you're worth getting in trouble for."

Now that it was time to go home, Ciel lifted his fingers from the piano and got up. Sebastian had his hands on him the moment he approached the door, an arm around his shoulders while Ciel had _his_ hands in his pockets. The boy didn't shake Sebastian's arm off but couldn't help but wonder just how much planning had or hadn't gone into this growing physical proximity between them.

His phone rang just before they left the house (Ciel felt the stern gazes of Sebastian's parents in his back, even though they were nothing but portraits) and the boy answered with a grumpy "Yes?", when he saw that it was actually Bard.

What he hadn't expected was the concerned tone in his chauffeur's voice, implying that something very bad had happened.

"_Young master Phantomhive, you need to come to the hospital quickly."_

Ciel frowned at the phone before bringing it back to his ear. "Could you repeat that?"

"_Is there somebody with you?"_

"Yes…" Ciel looked at the artist. "Sebastian is. Bard, what's wrong?"

"_Your aunt, Miss Durless, had an accident. She's being brought to hospital, but things are looking very bad for her."_

* * *

_Yeah, thought I could also post the chapter since it's finished already sooo... there you go. I hope you enjoyed it. And a guest guessed right, the gangster is indeed Lau! =D_

_So, as always, don't forget your reviews because the story lives off favs, alerts and reviews. You guys know that I love to hear from you even if I don't always respond to your reviews, right? I still read them._

_See ya in the next chapter!_


	19. Interest VI

**Chapter 17**

Angelina Durless died on the first of February at 7.30pm from excessive blood loss, a severe head injury and the fact that her rib cage had caved in like an accordion pressed together. She had been involved in a larger accident in central London: A car had rammed hers full speed, another one had come from the other side, which had caused a small chain of cars crushing into each other. The driver of the first car immediately died, and with Angelina dead on arrival, the other driver was the only one alive, brought to hospital with a concussion.

Ciel had been very, very brave. He'd stood there in the corridor with Sebastian and the chauffeur of the Phantomhive family, his gaze cold and his words sharp, his posture stiff and proud as if to defy the expectations bestowed upon him. A nurse had sat down next to him at one point, telling him that he shouldn't be sad and that his aunt surely was in a better place. Ciel had stared hard at her. "Do I look sad to you?" he'd asked, and after a few seconds, the bewildered nurse had up and left the three males to themselves. Ciel had sniffed and turned to the chauffeur, telling him to start organising the funeral: Angelina Durless had always wanted to have her body given over to the flames, so after a last farewell in a chapel (Undertaker was supposed to make Angelina look presentable, though from what the doctor had told the chauffeur, it sounded as if it would be quite some work, for her skull was broken in several places), they would have her brought to the crematory.

Another family member had just passed on. Sebastian wondered how Ciel was feeling. There was nothing to see in his eyes and his posture didn't betray his feelings, either. He told Sebastian that Frances would now take care of him, but he called right afterwards and told her he'd spend the night in his own house. As soon as he hung up, he ordered his chauffeur to return to the Phantomhive estate without him. This only left Sebastian, so the artist answered the unasked question with a smile. "Sounds like a sleep over to me," he said, trying to appear as normal as possible. He doubted very much that Ciel wanted any more of those pitying looks people gave him.

"Master Phantomhive, with all due respect," the chauffeur spoke up, "I have to bring you back home. We will have to assume that is was an attack until proven wrong."

"If it was an attack," Ciel answered, "then _I_ would have fallen victim to it or my aunt Frances. Aunt Anne plays… played no role in the company's management and never volunteered to take the role of the CEO should anything happen to Frances or me. It is kind of you to worry but I firmly believe that this has been an unfortunate accident." He nodded at the blond man. "Good night, Bard. Do not forget to make the needed arrangements for Aunt Anne. Give Undertaker one of her red dresses to put her in. A white coffin would be appropriate. Sebastian, we are leaving."

Ciel was walking down the corridor before Sebastian could even close his mouth. The artist was not only stunned at the boy's cold behaviour but also slightly shocked at how intriguing he _really_ found it. Just when he'd thought that the boy was completely opening up to him, something like this had to happen, causing the boy to hide behind solid walls once again.

He felt a hand on his shoulder and turned to look at the chauffeur Bard. "Take care of him," the man said. "He's devastated."

Sebastian nodded. "I'll bring him home tomorrow."

"Not if he doesn't tell you to. Madam Midford might get him, who knows?" Bard sighed loudly, which sounded more like a groan. "Damn it, I hate it when stuff like that happens." He glowered at the floor to his feet. "Fuck, I need a cigarette. Two. Three. You go take the boy away from here, will ya?"

The artist wanted to reply but the very subject of the conversation cut off his words. "Sebastian! Are you coming or not?"

Bard gave a lax salute before turning to somebody from the hospital staff, leaving Sebastian to obey to Ciel and follow the child out of the hospital. "What took you so long?" Ciel snapped.

"Bard wants to know whether you need clothes."

"We will get them ourselves. Bard hasn't got time to get me any with the orders I gave him. Where did you leave the car?"

"You do know that it's eight pm by now-"

"Shut up!" Ciel screeched.

Sebastian raised an eyebrow at him but chose to stay quiet, lest he might laugh. That would be very much uncalled for.

The boy's expression became blank the next moment, and he turned his head away from Sebastian. The artist quickly felt uneasiness rising but choked the feeling before it could become stronger. He wouldn't sympathise with a situation he did not understand. And the last thing he understood was why somebody would grieve for somebody else. The Michaelis' had never been strong at being able to grieve for somebody. Sebastian faintly recalled Ash's twin Angela commenting on how the Michaelis family seemed to lack basic human emotions and abilities. She might have been right.

Ciel didn't even look into Sebastian's general direction when he gave the artist the directions to his house, but he spoke with a clear, strong voice, walked proudly to the door of his house to get a set of clothes while Sebastian had a little talk with the Japanese butler, a friendly elderly man who was earnestly worried about his young master. It seemed as if the Phantomhive staff would be transferred to the Midford estate along with their employer. The butler – Tanaka – thanked Sebastian for offering Ciel a quiet night in surroundings that wouldn't immediately remind him of his deceased aunt. Sebastian felt another pang in his insides at that, but ignored it.

When Ciel came out with a small bag the butler bowed to him, wishing him a pleasant stay at Sebastian's. Ciel didn't return the sentiment, his visible eye determinedly staring into the night, and Sebastian wished the old man a good night before getting into the car with Ciel. The boy maintained his blank expression until Sebastian showed him to the guest room he'd previously occupied. Only then did something in his features crack, visible in the furrowing of his eyebrows, in the downward turn of his lips, in the way he would rip off his eye patch and toss it on the nightstand before lying on the covers with his knees drawn against his chest and his back facing Sebastian. The artist walked around the bed and sat down next to its corner quietly.

"What was my father like?" Ciel suddenly asked, his voice chasing the silence away reluctantly.

To be honest, Sebastian would rather not remember any other dead people, but he tried to search his memory for the aristocratic man. "I have seen him less often than Rachel."

"Tell me about it," Ciel murmured. "Aunt Anne told me that you knew each other."

The artist frowned mildly. "Did she now?" He shrugged. "It's true in a way. We've met, talked to each other, and shared a few laughs. Vincent was quick to comment on the… bond that Ash and I had back then. He was very interested in our art but we didn't get along that well in the beginning."

Ciel was looking at him now, not relaxing his body in the slightest, leaving it curled up and tense. "Why is that?"

Sebastian carefully curled his hand around an ankle and pulled the leg into a straight position with the boy's foot in his lap. "Well, it was because of my family. Vincent had been expanding his business into other branches such as the textile industry and electronics, and being a stressed man among his wife's friends, he unwound just enough to tell me that a Michaelis around could only mean bad luck." Sebastian started easing the tension out of Ciel's foot and calf, chuckling at the memory: Vincent with a glass of red wine in his hand, lounging in the new furniture that Ash had bought with his newly-earned money, his cravat loosened now that the two women were upstairs practising together. How Vincent's eyes had pinched at the corners like a content cat, that beauty mark adding to his overall elegance just as much as the clothes that he wore. How he had regarded Sebastian and Ash: One obsessively drawing the other, the other smiling politely at the guest. Vincent had lifted his glass in a half-toast, contemplatively, before smiling at them as they talked about fate and luck._ 'How bad the odds are,'_ he'd said, _'we must truly be unlucky if the epitome of bad luck is around us.'_

Sebastian had grinned at him, since Vincent's eyes had been piercing through him. _'What a nice way to call my family a bunch of devils.'_

'_I would never dare put it that way.' _Vincent had smiled_. 'So you said it in the end.'_

'_I'm used to it, really,'_ Sebastian had said, emphasizing it with a shrug. _'There's nothing to it.'_

Vincent had narrowed his eyes at him as if searching for something. They hadn't directly spoken to each other for the rest of the evening.

"It quickly got better afterwards," Sebastian continued, "but we were never what you'd call friends. I happened to be there when he was." In front of him Ciel shifted into a more comfortable position. "Your father was a… polite and educated man with a strong sense for family. It was very obvious that he loved Rachel and he always spoke of you. He just didn't think much of the Michaelis name and its reputation."

"Should he have?" Ciel asked.

Sebastian smirked. "Seeing that I'm massaging his son's leg, yes."

The boy grimaced. "That wasn't very nice."

"Of course it wasn't. I apologise."

"You should." There was a beat of a pause before Ciel put his other leg on Sebastian's lap. "Continue."

The artist chuckled. "Yes, my lord."

"You are coming to the funeral with me," the boy ordered as Sebastian set to work once again, hands once or twice gliding under the hem of Ciel's trouser legs to touch the soft skin there. Sebastian wouldn't have minded if Ciel had worn the shorts from autumn. Or if he had Alois' fashion style, though only behind closed doors. Ciel was already getting too much attention with normal trousers.

"If that is what you wish."

"It is."

"She didn't like me."

"She did until… Is there something you aren't telling me?" Ciel was looking intently at him now, sitting up and drawing his legs in once again; the artist let them slip out of his hands.

Sebastian returned the gaze quietly. "I don't know. Should there be?"

"There are many things that you only hint at in passing. If my father knew Ash and you, why would Ash… sculpture him in that way? Where did he get the classified information from?"

"Ash has very… unique ways of showing his affection." Sebastian himself had wondered whether there was something else to it, but he had been rather preoccupied back then to focus on anything else but Ash. The year of Vincent Phantomhive's death had been very, very turbulent and Sebastian had been quite busy trying to keep Ash right there where he was: in his hands. But Ash had fought him for control and had always tried getting out of Sebastian's grip. By the nearing end of the year, they'd been quite tired from the constant chase for personified inspiration, and Ash had been lashing out more often, grown ridiculously protective over his sister and didn't really seem to know whether he wanted to be Sebastian's muse or not. Their relationship had been nothing but a long period of physical and psychological pain and while Ash had been very strong, he had shattered when his sister had been taken away from him forever.

Sebastian had endured, but he'd been so focussed on getting the last sparks of inspiration from Ash, so focussed on wringing him dry that he had not looked past their bubble. He didn't know how the relationship to the Phantomhives had changed, considering that they had been friends with Angela, but Sebastian was quite sure that he had once hung up on Rachel when she'd tried to convey her condolences.

"I think that Ash and Vincent were distant friends. Before Angela's death. Afterwards… well, let's just say that Ash shunned everybody equally." Until he had climbed out of the dark hole that had threatened to swallow whim whole, caught the attention of Aleister Chamber and became famous all over the world in just about two years. Sebastian, having lost contact when Ash had been at his lowest, had been more than just faintly surprised. "But I'd rather not talk about Ash."

"That's okay. We can talk about Angela."

"She was a very nice and only had very little energy left for her passions." Sebastian lay on his back, his feet dangling over the bed's edge. "Before she died she didn't do much more than stare at you as if she didn't know you. Imagine Ash's pain when she stopped reacting to him calling her." Sebastian frowned at the ceiling. "This is getting depressing. Let's not talk about Angela, either."

Ciel regarded him calmly. "Claude, then."

"I'm still contemplating breaking his jaw, you know?"

"Are you now? Whatever for?"

"For laying his fingers on you, of course."

The boy's expression did not change. "I should be flattered, I guess. Did you also do that for Ash?"

Sebastian got up. "I'm going to sleep."

"I remember you claiming to be an insomniac." Ciel raised an eyebrow.

"Fine. I'm going to _try_ and sleep."

Ciel still seemed dubious. Then he understood. "It seems I hit a nerve."

The artist stopped in his way to the door and turned around when he remembered that he should rather stay where he was for the time being. While Ciel certainly didn't act like it, his aunt had just died. "It seems you are rather fixed on Ash."

The boy scoffed. "I'm just trying to find out about my parents' lives. He was a small part of those lives."

Feeling that weird sinking feeling in his stomach again Sebastian quietly worried over his emotional health as he sat down on the bed again, close to the boy. "Do you miss them?"

"Nothing comes from mourning the dead," Ciel answered. "It is important to move on and leave the deceased behind."

Sebastian regarded him quietly, thinking back to the boy that had shook with barely suppressed fear when his aunt had taken off his eye patch. There was a whole continent between then and now, for Ciel was tense, but not because he was currently showing his eye to Sebastian, half-hidden behind his fringe. The artist lifted a hand to brush away the strands of hair and while Ciel flinched as if getting ready for a counter-attack, nothing more happened.

"I can see you're moving on," Sebastian said. "You're doing well."

Ciel closed his dead eye and huffed. "Maybe you are tired."

"Maybe."

"Go to bed."

Sebastian chuckled and moved to get up.

"But not before I've fallen asleep."

Stopping in the middle of his tracks – which happened to be a somewhere between sitting down and standing -, Sebastian could barely hide his surprise at the request. "Are you asking me to stay until you've fallen asleep?"

"No," Ciel answered quickly, blushing, "I'm allowing you to stay around me until you actually come around some sleep." He went to get his bag.

"So," Sebastian began slowly as Ciel entered the adjoining bathroom, "since I'm going to be awake longer than you, are you technically telling me that I can watch you sleep until I myself fall asleep?"

"I never said _that_," Ciel called from inside the bathroom, causing the artist to laugh quietly. He could only imagine the shade of Ciel's blush. He must be rather red in the face now.

"But you definitely implied it," Sebastian countered, standing by the closed door. "Ciel, I didn't know you were a romantic."

"… You know what, I'm not even going to grace that with an answer. It is below my level."

"If that is what you wish."

Ciel opened the door again, dressed in a set of plain black silk pyjamas and quickly crawled under the covers in order to stay warm. Sebastian took this as a sign to switch off the light and lie down on top of the covers. This was a double bed so both of them had enough space.

"Do you miss your parents?" Ciel asked quietly. He was turned away from the artist but had yet to say anything about Sebastian lying there.

"No," Sebastian said. "I've moved on."

Ciel fell silent after that, but his body relaxed much later, indicating that he was asleep now. Sebastian let out a soft breath, sinking into the soft pillows and involuntarily closing his eyes. Sleep came by incredibly easily and he slept for ten hours without a single interruption, waking up only because Ciel started shifting in the morning. In his arms.

… Well, what a nice way to find out that Ciel was a cuddler.

Sebastian ignored the puffy eyes to watch the realisation in the boy's features make way to angry embarrassment. The artist had slept longer than he would have in three average nights out together and he felt uncharacteristically awake. It was a nice morning, even if Ciel tried to smother him with a pillow, his face as red as a tomato and with Sebastian's laughter filling the air.

**OOO**

The funeral took place a week after Angelina's death. As he parked his car a block away from the cemetery, Sebastian wondered how Ciel was. The boy had moved into his other aunt's house and it seemed as if the two children there were keeping him busy there. How must Ciel feel about the sudden addition of 'siblings'? It was surely different from seeing them at parties or when they visited each other.

The boy was standing by the gate with his new 'parents', talking to one of the attendants while the rest passed by slowly. Somebody sighed right into Sebastian's ear. "Look at the little one. It's tragic, really."

Sebastian turned around to face the Viscount of Druitt dressed in a coat that looked as if Claude has designed it, emitting strict, cutting elegance despite its crème colour. It didn't really go that well with Aleister's melodramatic attitude or the fact that he was actually wearing mittens. It wasn't _that_ cold.

"You knew Angelina?" he asked politely.

"Why yes, I did. We studied medicine together." Aleister made a waving motion with his hand before Sebastian could speak. "I know she was five years older than me but I started early and she didn't run to university right after having finished school. What a beautiful coincidence, don't you think?" He sniffed. "Speaking of beautiful, I wish my brother was here."

"The police are investigating the case. Don't worry too much."

"You're right."

"Well, let's go inside.

Aleister nodded sadly. "I'll sit with you."

Sebastian didn't dare chuckle. This was his benefactor, after all. "Whatever you want."

"You know," Aleister said as they passed the gates, "the winter sun would have looked so good on Edgar's Snow White skin."

"I'm sure it would have."

"I want my brother back!" Aleister wailed, catching dubious gazes from onlookers in the process.

"You should go find him then." An arm was wrapped round Sebastian's shoulders, another around Aleister's. Ash gave the Viscount a languid smile before turning to Sebastian. "We should make a date for that sculpture you promised me. I was thinking of white marble, how does that sound?"

"It sounds like something that shouldn't be discussed while attending a funeral," Sebastian replied. "Why are you here anyway?"

"As a friend of… Rachel and Vincent I felt obliged to come. Angelina and I have also met a few years ago, but we never got past the surname basis." Ash chuckled when Aleister distanced himself from him, seemingly ready for a vicious remark.

"Don't quarrel, you two," Sebastian murmured, taking Ash's gloved hand into his before gently removing it from his shoulders. Ash got offended at a spectacular rate, so the artist was careful not to provoke him.

When they entered the church, Sebastian turned around in time to see Ciel entering the building with his aunt and uncle. The boy nodded towards the last row where Undertaker and Gregory were sitting, the latter with his head ducked and perhaps drawing something. Sebastian was faintly surprised when Ash started talking to the Midfords but walked past them to sit down next to Ciel, Aleister sitting on the other side. Undertaker, sitting to Ciel's right side, leaned forward and grinned. "Hello~, didn't expect you to come to a funeral, Sebastian."

"Don't even dare start," Sebastian responded lightly.

"Nah, I don't feel like it." Undertaker giggled. "But I wanted to give something to you before I forget. I doubt we'll see each other after the funeral."

"Don't you think that's little bit rude?"

"Stop feigning concern, Sebastian," Ciel cut in. Undertaker cackled.

The artist sighed, his gaze brushing over Ash talking to the rest of the Midfords in the front rows. "Alright, what have you got?"

"The picture! I've finally had the time to finish it."

"What picture?" Sebastian asked.

Undertaker held out a large envelope. When Sebastian took out the picture, he recognised it as the one that had been shot at the Sylvester party: He could see himself sitting on Undertaker's couch, the others merrily chatting in the background, and his arm was around Edgar's shoulder. The model was grinning widely, in a challenging manner almost, while Sebastian did not seem very impressed with what the model had to offer. The most interesting part of the monochrome picture was Ciel sitting on the ground, one arm supporting his body on the couch's armrest as he looked over it in mild curiosity.

"My baby brother," Aleister whispered teary-eyed.

Ciel just blushed furiously. "That is photo shopped."

"Oh, I highly doubt that," Sebastian said with unhidden amusement. "Thank you very much for this, Undertaker. It will be framed and put on my nightstand so that I can see it every morning when I wake up."

"You creep," Ciel muttered.

"It's called 'Interest'," Undertaker informed them, "since Ciel does look, ah, _interested_ in what you two are doing."

"That's what you get for flirting with Edgar," Gregory mumbled from where he sat hunched over his sketch pad.

"You were flirting with my brother?" Aleister asked and didn't sound melodramatic at all.

"No, I didn't," Sebastian said. "I was trying to get his mind off of Maurice." He put the photograph back into the envelope and placed it on his lap. As if on cue the doors were closed behind them. Ciel took a deep breath, straightened and remained quiet throughout the whole procedure. Ash once turned around and looked at the people sitting in the last row, but he had mainly stared at Sebastian, and then at Ciel. It wasn't very hard to guess his feelings, or at least Sebastian thought so. Ash hadn't been around Irene back then, but it seemed as if Sebastian's former, surviving muses reacted to new ones as if they were allergic to them.

Ciel didn't shed one tear during the whole funeral, keeping his expression stony and unreadable as he returned to his aunt and uncle and his two cousins. After the funeral he called Sebastian to follow him, and after the artist had put Ash and Aleister together long enough to disappear, he went after the boy who was heading for a faraway corner on the other side of the cemetery. "Have you talked to Lau yet?" Ciel asked once Sebastian was close enough to him.

"No, I haven't but we can do it la-"

"Now. Call him."

Taking out his phone, Sebastian obliged and dialled the man's number.

"Do you think he did it?"

"Did what?"

Ciel nodded towards the chapel. "Cause the accident. Or at least one of his men."

"No, he didn't" Sebastian answered, holding the phone to his ear. "I told him not to harm you in any way. Causing a death in your family is considered as harm. Besides, wasn't it you who ruled out an attack?"

"I had other people in mind," Ciel answered vaguely, and Sebastian scolded himself for not having thought about that.

There was a soft click on the other side_. "Hello, Sebastian."_

"Lau."

_"What are you calling me for? Are you having any troubles?"_

The artist shot a glance at the phone. "Not really? Listen, I just wanted to know how far you've gotten."

"_With what?"_

"Finding potential murderers?"

"_Ah, yes. You wanted me to look into the Phantomhive's history and see whether there were any rivals that had may or may not have hired someone to off them."_

Sebastian was glad that Ciel couldn't exactly hear what was said. "That's what I wanted to know. Did you find anything?"

"_A little bit. Let me get up from bed, you've actually woken me up."_

Sebastian checked his watch. "Lau, it's three pm on a weekday."

"_So? People like me go to bed on seven am every day."_ There was faint rustling on the other side and a yawn. _"Alright, it seems as if we did find a little bit. We managed to find quite a few rivals and are looking for possible motives and whether they would even have the guts to hire henchmen."_

"Sounds alright," Sebastian said.

Lau laughed. _"Sure. Slipping down the stairs and landing on your tailbone also sounds alright compared to what else could have happened. But a bruised tailbone still hurts, you see. For days."_

"Is that your way of telling me that you aren't looking forward to this?" Sebastian smirked. "Because I'm not even feeling bad for you."

"_And I don't know whether I should feel bad for _you_. Did you know that your family has expanded into the textile industries?"_

"Except for Claude having his own fashion brand, no."

"_Well, he also has his own factories that produce the textiles, much like the Funtom brand, which had been under Rachel Phantomhive's command. When she wasn't playing piano all over the world, she had her own fashion brand, primarily in America. Things might be very mild here, but the Funtom and the Faustus brand are quite vicious in America before Funtom Fashion went down three years ago. Being the man behind the brand, I'd say that Claude could have the guts to do it."_

"Three years ago? Claude had just started expanding his business. He wouldn't have attacked the lead directly."

There was a pause. _"Well, you do follow your cousin's steps well."_

Sebastian didn't have an answer for that. Ciel was glaring at him as if urging him to move on with the script. "Anything else?"

"_Why, yes. We've also checked their relationships to certain individuals as far as anything about them was reported. See, there is somebody you know among them that had a rather big quarrel with Rachel and Vincent Phantomhive three and a half years ago. It seems as if that man has ventured around down here once in a while. Some of my people remember him."_

"Who is it? I want you to look closer into his files, see what you can find." Sebastian tested the waters by carefully pulling Ciel closer. When the boy didn't resist and rather tried to listen to the conversation, he wrapped his arm around the younger one's waist. It occurred to him that he would have to ponder over this new development between them when he had time. "Which function did he have in the lives of Rachel and Vincent?"

"_Only in Rachel's at first."_ Lau seemed to be smiling. "_He supported her financially from the moment she graduated."_

"A benefactor?" Sebastian frowned. "That doesn't help me. I've got many of those."

"_The most active is…?"_

Sebastian froze. "Are you serious?"

"_But of course!"_ Lau laughed. _"We suspect that Aleister Chamber, Viscount of Druitt, has the means, possibly the connections, and the mentality to have somebody killed."_

* * *

**_End_**

_of_

_Act III - Interest_

* * *

_**Plot-relevant interlude** (no, really, it's more plot-relevant than the last one. I suggest you read it) will be up **this Saturday!** Trust me, you **will get some answers** whether you like them or not XD_

**_Don't forget the reviews as usual!_**


	20. Interlude III: Scheherezade

**A/N:** This one's called Scheherezade because I was listening to the orchestral piece bearing the same name while writing this. Check it out, it's from Rimsky-Korsakov and it's wonderful! I'd like to think that Edgar is represented by the solo violin.

(Oh, and there was a question in a guest-review on the meaning of one of my sentences. It's the second option:"I'm allowing you to stay around me until you actually feel sleep coming around." Thank you for asking when you weren't certain about something! :D)

And as if I can't stop the onslaught of information, **there is really important stuff at the end of this chapter that you should probably read.**

**Disclaimer**: Nope.

**Warnings**: Stuff is getting twisted now, dears. Here, we've got mental instability, mentions of the Stockholm Syndrome, imprisonment, and violation of a (or many) healthy individual's bodies.

**Interlude – Scheherezade**

He had not seen the winter sun in weeks.

Moving his arms he listened to the rattling of his chains. He was tied to the wall behind his bed in a luxurious room that had its curtains drawn and could only move around the piece of furniture in a five feet radius. There was somebody watching him, always somebody else, and a password was exchanged when the person behind the door should let them out. He didn't fight when they opened the chains to let him brush his teeth, shower, relieve himself, but he flat out refused the food they gave him and felt his body weaken with every day that passed. He'd always been eating like a bird which was why his brother had started calling him his favourite songbird in their childhood, but now that he had no energy left at all, he couldn't help but think about all the times he'd peck at food with his brother basically hanging off him and gushing over him, asking him to sing for him, to show his wings, to entertain him.

Edgar knew where he was. He also knew that he deserved it. "That's what happens when you know something and tell it to the wrong person," he told the young guard. "I told Maurice and he had to suffer for it. I should have gone to the police." He looked at the guard, really looked, and almost choked on something as trivial as air. "I destroyed a life because I didn't go to the police. Or two. I heard there was a new one. Can you forgive me? I should have tried to liberate you all but I didn't because I was scared. I apologise."

The guard said nothing.

Edgar blinked at her, barely registering his bruised wrists by now. "I'm..." He certainly had never said this before. "... sorry."

Weeks had passed and nobody had ever talked to him. He had yet to see the leader, he had yet to see Maurice who might be gone already. Who knew, maybe the younger model was dead? Edgar refused to think about it.

"You don't realise how bad your current predicament is."

Forget his noble attitude, his years of learning the proper etiquette, the way he planned every single move. Edgar doubled over, his fingers digging into satin sheets as he tried his hardest not to scream. Instead he firmly closed his eyes, sat up straight again and just started talking because he could. He talked about his life, more often than not about his brother, his hobbies, his model colleagues, the Faustus brand and how he'd become its face, complained about Alois, talked about the monochrome drawing that Sebastian had made for him. He wondered aloud about the relationships within the Michaelis family and concluded that he failed to understand how a family could be torn apart for no reason other than power.

The guard wrote down the password on a piece of paper and pushed it under the door. A click was heard and the girl left. Edgar almost told her to stay. He almost yelled at her. Because he could. _He_ still could. So he continued his running commentary on nothing. There was no way to tell what time it was, but as long as the electronic lights were on, he would talk, hum and yell at the guards that never replied. He'd also started ripping up his bed covers which then were replaced each morning, the tatters would perhaps be thrown away, but how could Edgar know? He was in here, caged, without the chance to look outside or even at himself in a mirror, which only left his own voice to prove that he indeed was still there.

It wasn't until later – later being an undefined amount of time; _minutesdayshoursseconds_ – that the door opened again and somebody entered. Edgar ceased his murmuring and stared.

Maurice carefully closed the door behind him, his eyes on Edgar. He was dressed in a pair of obscenely short shorts, a plain top and a thin cardigan, everything in white. No shoes, not even socks. As far as the older model knew it was still winter outside.

"Maurice," Edgar said, tasting the name on his lips and tongue again. He felt ashamed that the younger model saw him in such an undignified state. His hair must be a mess, his voice slightly hoarse, his appearance and mind cracked like a mirror that had taken a fist. "Maurice." He eyed the other male. "You look good."

Maurice smiled weakly. His lips were tinted blue.

_I'm sorry_, Edgar wanted to say. He brushed back stray strands of hair and waved at Maurice to come closer. The younger model obeyed, taking small quick steps, and the next moment they were in each other's arms. Maurice didn't smell like Maurice anymore, Edgar realised, but it was him nevertheless: the same silky hair, the same slight frame… Edgar grabbed the younger male's chin and forced him to look up. "I apologise. I shouldn't have said anything but how could I have known he'd find out? I'm sorry, Maurice, I've never regretted anything in my life but I severely regret my cowardice-"

A soft hand touched his clothed arm. Maurice smiled and shook his head. He took a step back and started motioning with his hands.

Sign language.

'_Please don't apologise. Anyone would have been frightened in your place. You remained calm. You did remarkably well considering the circumstances. I think it's my fault that I was found out, I lost it. _I_ should be sorry.'_

Edgar was hit with emptiness. Every single thought fled his mind. "You can say that with your mouth, Maurice. Speak to me."

His smile faltering, the younger blond held up his hands to start gesturing again, but Edgar grabbed them and held them tightly enough to cause pain. "I don't know why you learned sign language. You didn't know it before and you don't need it now. But it's okay, you can talk to me. You can open your mouth and say something. He didn't do anything to you, did he? Talk to me, Maurice." Edgar leaned down, grasping for anything in his mind. "Talk to me and I'll kiss you." Maurice's eyes widened. "It's what you wanted, right? I must say I'm not good with this emotion. Love is quite dangerous and it demands an amount of trust that I cannot give. I knew about your feelings but I can't tell you if I'm willing to give it a shot once we're out of here. Anyway: A kiss for a word, Maurice. I know your voice is there."

The younger model bowed his head.

Edgar stared at him, honestly confused. "It's alright. No kiss then. Come on, open your mouth and tell me how we can get out of here. We'll run straight to the police and-"

Maurice's hands jerked as if trying to speak in sign language again, but Edgar held on to them tightly. The younger one sat down on the bed, not making eye contact, and remained silent with a pained expression on his face.

It finally dawned on Edgar. He let go as if Maurice's hands were hot coals. The horror sat deep in his chest. He'd ruined a perfect individual. "You can't speak anymore."

Maurice started gesturing. '_He damaged my vocal chords. Didn't remove my tongue like he did with some others, but I'm not going to risk it by trying to whisper. There are ears everywhere.'_ He gave a mirthless smile. _'Looks like I'll never get that kiss.'_

Before Edgar could reply the door flew open again to reveal a man clad in the purest white smiling serenely at the pair by the bed. "Did he calm down now, Maurice? You did well."

Edgar felt sick to his stomach and had to avert his gaze.

"Oh, darling, sweetie, _baby brother_, look at you!" When arms wrapped around him, Edgar started thrashing around.

"Don't touch me!"

It wasn't as if he had any energy left, which was why his brother had joined the cuffs around his bleeding wrists behind Edgar's back in little to no time. The model didn't hold still, the dawning realisation of what could happen to him blacking out everything he'd ever learned in his life. He would not endure this sick violation of his body. His brother watched him with honest pity in his eyes as Edgar felt a wave of uneasiness, as his vision grew black for just a second before returning to him again. With his hands trapped behind his back, he had to sit down, guided by his brother's hands. Maurice, sitting on Edgar's right, was trembling.

Aleister exhaled as if he were relieved. "Alright, you had me worried there for a second." He sat down on Edgar's left, forcing the younger sibling's head down on one shoulder to pat it affectionately. "Everything's alright, you know, now that you're with me."

Edgar didn't answer.

"You can't leave, you see. You'd be spotted before you left the grounds. Even if you managed to escape, I have the means to hunt you down. Please don't leave, you might end up wounded or dead. I wouldn't want that." He was quiet for a short while. "I'm sorry Amanda told you about this. She separated us quite harshly."

Edgar remembered the young girl, no older than fourteen, he'd run into while sleeping over at his brother's mansion. She'd stopped him after he'd apologised and had pulled him into her room to tell him exactly what had been a secret for so many years. She'd told him of her damaged vocal chords and opened her mouth to show him that there was no tongue. It seemed that Aleister used the Stockholm syndrome to his benefit, isolating the girls from each other and the outside until he was the centre of their lives. Without their voices, those singers, dancers (orphans that had never made it into an orphanage, children from the street) had nobody to call out to but Aleister and when he had introduced them to each other (only at parties, most of them were usually locked in day and night), they had been aware of their bitter fate, but not enough to understand that he had turned them into a horde of pets. Amanda seemed to have been the strongest among them and Edgar felt she'd told the truth to the wrong person. Instead of running to the police, he'd been too shocked to do anything.

"How many of the girls are actually mute?" Edgar asked, feeling his brother's hair tickling the side on his face. He didn't dare move. "Real mutes."

"Three or four," Aleister said nonchalantly. "One of them with a psychological blockade. I'll take care of it should her voice return."

Three or four out of _twenty_.

Edgar closed his eyes. "What did you do to Amanda?"

"Nothing special," Aleister replied.

"What did you do, brother?"

"None of your concern."

"It is!" Edgar got up, whirling around to face his brother (and the world turned a little). "I am responsible!"

"Look at you," Aleister interjected, completely ignoring his words, "you didn't eat. I can tell."

"How is that important right now? Aleister, tell me what you did to Amanda."

"Nothing special." Aleister sighed and opened his vest to remove a strange-looking collar. "I actually came for a reason. This is going to keep you on my grounds. It will observe your heart-rate, know your location and it will keep you from talking until I have the time for the operation. Don't worry, it won't take long and you won't feel a thing when I'm done."

That collar was made of metal and looked as if it was going to be locked once it was in place. Edgar felt the blood drain from his face. "I'm not going to wear this."

Aleister huffed. "Do you have to make things difficult? You always defy me, but not this time! You are going to stay with me. You are going to be _happy_ here. Happy and safe."

"I'm going to stay with you, alright?" Edgar eyed the collar wearily. "But I'm not going to wear this. I'm not going to be locked inside this room. I have a job, I have people who are waiting for me outside, I can't just disappear. Let me out of here, Aleister," he almost choked, "_brother_, and I swear I'll come back every single evening. I'll keep quiet about what happened. I'll tell them I was sick."

"There will always be people who are going to try and lure you away from me." Aleister sighed dramatically. "You can't go."

"I-" Edgar stopped, frowning. "… Is this about Ash? Or Claude? Or Lawrence?" _Or Maurice_, he wanted to add, but the younger model was already in Aleister's claws. It couldn't be about him anymore. "Those people aren't trying to take me away from you. We'll always be brothers and…"

His voice failed him when he heard a soft click and saw the barrel of a sleek black handgun pressed against Maurice's temple. The young model – now songbird – froze, eyes wide but fixed on Edgar. "It's for you own good," Aleister said calmly. "Put it on for him, Maurice."

The songbird accepted the collar and approached Edgar slowly, reached up to secure it around Edgar's neck. He took the key that Aleister offered to him and locked the collar. Then he stayed like that, arms around Edgar's neck. Looking past Maurice the model could see how his brother relaxed once the collar was in place.

"I'm going to keep you safe," Aleister repeated, "safe and happy and alive… Maurice, you are allowed to stay with him for a while. See to his wrists before they can get infected. Leave this room in two hours."

Maurice didn't react but Aleister didn't mind. He smiled at his brother like he always used to as children, this over-enthusiastic, loving, here's-my-good-side-take-a-picture smile that would have made Edgar laugh indulgently in response which, in turn, would have ended in a hug that smelled like a flower shop, but this time, the smile went without any response, so it wilted.

"I'm protecting you," he promised, "from all those evildoers outside my grounds. I'm saving your _life_." He left the key for the hand cuffs by the bedside table and took the one for the collar from Maurice's fingers, putting it away along with his gun. "Jennifer, dear, let me out," he called, using his usual over-the-top voice. When the young songbird, one of those who didn't roll their eyes at Aleister's antics, opened the door he gushed over her as if he hadn't just imprisoned his little brother. If she could, Edgar knew the girl would have laughed loudly, and her voice would have been a bird's song in spring. Lifting the smiling beauty into his arms, Aleister closed and locked the door behind him.

Maurice slowly stepped away from Edgar as if he was scared that the older model would vanish. Edgar snorted at the mere thought. The collar around his neck was comfortable enough, but it seemed to be humming against his skin. He could almost feel the whole grounds connected to this thing of technology, waiting for him to try something. Not wanting to know what would happen should he try and speak, Edgar remained quiet as Maurice unlocked the handcuffs and the ones that were chained to the wall behind the bed. He left to get medical supplies and Edgar went to take a shower, leaving the bathroom door open because he couldn't care less.

Maurice reappeared, stuck his head into the bathroom and then sat down outside by the door, waiting for two hours in which Edgar stood under scalding hot water and peeled at the torn skin of his wrists.

* * *

_fin._

* * *

_... guess you didn't see that coming. Well, now you at least know why all those songbirds are mute, right? (oh look, a reference to chapters one and two! xD who remembers Sebastian and Ciel wondering about the songbirds being mute? Nobody, I guess, but I don't blame you. It's three months back.) _

_I have something **important** to say!_

_**There won't be another update next week.** Or the week after. In fact, **I doubt there will be another update until 3rd October**. Why? you might ask. Well, , I'd like to take some time off in order to **properly work on the last two acts** (_Act IV - Temptation_ and _Act V - Surrender)_, on the interlude (_Marche Funebre_) and the epilogue (_Reprise_). Don't we all want this to be a good fic? =D We've got around 12 more chapters to go, give or take a few,** and when I'm back updates might come twice a week until the end. **No promises made here, but it's likely._

_I hope I'll see you all around once Act IV begins._

_That being said, I'm still reading your reviews, so **feel encouraged to leave some feedback** ;)_


	21. Act IV: Temptation

**A/N: **Guys. GUYS. Guess what, I'm back and I'm therefore stating the obvious! Unfortunately, I didn't get as much done as I intended to because a nasty writer's block got hold of me. I'm momentarily only three chapters ahead, but I'd like to be a few more chapters ahead, so except for this week, updates will come every Wednesday until further notice. But since this is me coming back and trying to offer you something good, you're so getting two chapters this week. And maybe because I like the chapter that follows this one.

Anyway, it's good to be back and I hope you guys are around, too!

By the way, did you know that Alex Beoulve has drawn great art for Crescendo? It took me minutes to calm down and an hour until the grinning stopped. Links can be found on my profile page. Thanks again, Alex!

Beta credits go to Carrie2sky as always. My chapters look pretty with her help :D

**Thank you for all the favs/alerts/reviews! You are all awesome! **

/lengthy A/N

**Warnings**: I should warn you about Ciel's first kiss because it's not even from Sebastian. I am a horrible person. Please don't forget that **this is still a Sebastian/Ciel fic**, and that I would never ever make any excursions into another pairing if not explicitly stated from the _beginning_.

**Disclaimer**: If only a temporary hiatus could make me the owner of Kuro... But no, nothing has changed.

* * *

_**ACT IV**_

_Temptation_

_(Dance)_

_The end of innocence_

* * *

**Chapter 18**

_Joker – vibrant, good-natured Joker – is standing by the window as Sebastian is studying for his A levels, looking out silently, solemnly. The young artist pauses in his work, sets down his pen and gets up from his chair. Joker has become difficult lately and Sebastian must say he's losing interest. There isn't much more to gain from having Joker around and before his creativity suffers from it Sebastian will jump off the wagon and take what's left with him. He smiles at the younger male with the eyeliner and the gelled hair. Joker is very interesting to look at with the way he dresses and paints his face; Sebastian has always been fascinated by how different he would look after every change, but back then, the ever-changing face paint had been more of a game to them. Nowadays, it seems as if the make-up has become his symbol for self-confidence, for he would never take it off in Sebastian's presence. He was able to a few months ago, but he's closing up and Sebastian is falling out of love with the inspiration Joker has to offer. There isn't much to it anymore. And while Sebastian loves to plan his moves and words in advance at least roughly, such moments of utter clarity and the realisation and actions that follow are mere impulses from deep inside of him that lead to words of finality. Only words, though, never anything else. He doesn't _**need**_ anything else. _

_Taking Joker's hand into his, he switches on all of his charm and tells him very clearly that he feels he has exhausted Joker as a source for inspiration. It's easy, really, to make them his, to find out their secrets and their fears and their hopes, to transform all of it into paintings and to tell them that they don't need anybody else but him. They don't want anybody else than him either. And if they stay with him, they will find solutions to their problems together, they will be two halves of the same thing, the artist and his muse and they will never know that they are giving Sebastian much more than they are aware of. _

_Taking them is easy._

_Making them go is a very, very different thing._

_Joker stares at him. Then he screams, a desperate howl that makes Sebastian wince. At first the staff barges into Sebastian's room and the adolescent tells them to take Joker away. When the acrobat uses his teeth and nails and doesn't stop causing a ruckus, lunging for Sebastian, the head of the Michaelis family himself enters the room, shocking everybody into motionlessness – including his son – as he grabs the flailing teen by the collar. "Whatever you are doing, stop it," he tells his son. "There are things of actual importance you will have to attend to."_

_Sebastian bows his head and sits down by his desk to continue studying as Joker is thrown from the grounds._

_Sebastian changes his phone the next day, and Undertaker, who is on his semester holidays, accompanies him only to laugh hysterically enough for the whole shop to worry about whether he's getting enough oxygen. The artist leaves the old phone at Joker's doorstep as it reports missed calls and unopened text messages and jumps into Undertaker's car. He watches over Gregory and Edgar at school and hordes a quantity of people around him, a wall that Joker cannot penetrate. Students ask Sebastian about what has happened, but he only shrugs, saying that they've grown apart. It is partly true, but on the other hand he has made Joker too dependent to understand that Sebastian wants him gone._

_When Joker stops coming to school, Sebastian doesn't think much of it._

_Undertaker (still on holidays) tosses the newspaper in front of his feet one day as Sebastian visits him at the morgue with Gregory in tow. While the boy rushes to Undertaker's side to inspect the corpse with eyes full of interest, Sebastian picks up the paper, finding what Undertaker wanted to alert him to as if they both share a strange bond that wires their thoughts together. _

"_He's dead, huh?" Sebastian mutters._

"_Very dead, indeed." Undertaker cackles loudly. "See?"_

_Sebastian finally takes a look at the corpse, blue and purple and broken, but he recognises the red hair, the sharp face and he drops the newspapers in surprise. A moment passes in which Undertaker and Gregory stare at him, waiting for a reaction._

"_That," Sebastian says flatly, "was a very, very low blow."_

_Undertaker doubles over, screaming from laughter, crying, obviously finding his joke spectacularly funny while Gregory puts on a pair of gloves and then starts experimenting with Joker's hair. Several bones must be broken alone in his face, and as Gregory prods at it, his fingers sink into skin as the broken bone gives away._

_Sebastian leaves, haunted by Undertaker's laughter and wonders how it feels to press into dead flesh and feel the broken bone shift underneath._

_There is a monster inside him, and it is going to sleep._

**OOO**

By the time February ended, Sebastian realised that must be a very sick man.

There wasn't a specific situation that triggered the thought, in fact, he'd been lying in his bed, tossing and turning while the clock struck 5am, and when he had decided to roam the halls like he did almost every night, the thought had come to him, unwelcome, and he had been forced to accept this.

There was a certain… _thing_ that came from Ciel, undefined and unable to be paired with any of his traits. It was the boy in his whole complexity, the inside and the outside, the acting skills, the fake smiles, the real smiles, the dead eye in his right socket, the way he sneered and frowned, talked and _breathed_. Sebastian had been utterly fascinated from an artist's point of view back then, but something had shifted in mere four months … things had already been different at the very beginning. Sebastian was a man of strategy and he had been very appalled by himself that everything he had said and done had been based on natural responses. Yes, he had had a motive back then, and it still was his goal to see and have everything that Ciel had to offer but he could feel that he had never been impersonal about it. With Ash, things had been rather similar, though on a different level. Pursuing, _hunting_ that man had been out of personal interest, too, but not and never as personal as with Ciel.

This was a whole new thing, unseen and never experienced when it came to his muses. Never had he wanted to give them something in return. He had loved the art they had been (and were), he had never thought of them as anything else but a passionate hobby, a love for the idea that, while connected to the corporeal existence capturing it, never had crossed the fine line between loving what the subject represented to loving the subject _itself_, to want it more than necessary.

As the brush glided over the canvas, leaving trails of black in its wake, Sebastian's gaze found Ciel's several times. He had been aware of a certain shift between them, had been aware of his hands that wandered along the line of Ciel's waist and down to his hips and how Ciel would never say a word, remaining relaxed as if nothing out of the ordinary was happening. Yet Ciel would never initiate touch, he would rather wait for it, for example, sit down very close to Sebastian and have the artist pull him closer. There was something yielding in the way Ciel's body carefully leaned against his in those moments, something accepting along with the very clear message that said, 'I'm okay with this.'

Sebastian wondered about going further than that. He knew this way a boy, a minor, but it wasn't the body he was attracted to so much, it was the mind. And he knew that Ciel would grow up one day into a handsome young man, attractive, beautiful like his parents. Sebastian wanted to see that day, but he also didn't feel like waiting that long. He could be patient, yes, but this had a limit when it came to his muses: It was a relationship on time, it was fiery and vibrant and burned down quickly. The future always contained implications of Sebastian having found another one, for not even the strongest had lasted more than four years and Sebastian hadn't even been attracted to Ash (Sebastian refused to think about his romantic relationships in comparison to the ones with his muses: While nobody had died at the end of the former, the relationships had been as short as the latter and without any other kind of attraction than the physical. And somehow – oh, wonder – romantic pursuits had been choked in the beginning stages whenever a muse had passed by). How could a broken boy last longer than that? The artist almost sighed inwardly.

It would be a very sad day when Ciel ceased to inspire him.

"Something wrong?"

Sebastian looked up from the canvas to stare at Ciel who was looking up from the piano, his gaze dubious.

"I was just thinking."

"Be careful. We wouldn't want to damage that brain of yours."

Sebastian laughed dryly. "You're really funny. Why don't you become a stand-up comedian along with Gregory?"

"I sense sarcasm."

"If you only sense it, I must be doing something wrong."

Ciel pursed his lips, not knowing that the simple action demanded all of Sebastian's attention. "Anything new about the Viscount?"

"No," Sebastian answered. "Lau and his people are still doing the background research, but it seems as if Aleister has only visited the dens."

"The dens?" Ciel asked.

"They're dealing and consuming drugs there," Sebastian elaborated. "Lau says business is always good."

Ciel snorted. "I can't believe we're working with that criminal."

"_I_ can't believe he's suspecting the Viscount," Sebastian said. "Then again, I didn't know he had enough courage to go into one of Lau's dens at night, looking the way he does. He attracts people; I wonder how he got out of there again."

Ciel's reaction to this was indeed curious: The boy stiffened once he understood the implications and avoided Sebastian's gaze. "Like I care. He needs to go behind bars."

"We don't have any proof apart from the recollections of a drug dealer and gang leader who is all for convenience."

"You said we could trust him."

"And we can, but have you ever thought about how this would sound in court? Besides," he continued, "the Viscount hardly is a man who kills others. He would never get his hands dirty."

Ciel regarded him with an unreadable look, making Sebastian wonder what was going on inside his head. "If he's indeed the man behind the attack on my parents, he didn't kill them himself, did he?"

Sebastian shook his head. Ciel had a point there.

"We could tell the police anonymously. Tell them there are drugs in his house."

"How would a house search help?" Sebastian asked. "This is about the murder, right? It's three years back, Aleister got away and has no evidence left. You don't sign papers with professional killers." He thought back to Madame Red's funeral. "And he wouldn't kidnap his own beloved brother, would he now?"

Ciel pursed his lips. "I… don't think he would."

"He was crying at the funeral. Not necessarily because of your aunt but because he feared that Edgar is dead."

The boy inhaled sharply. "Alright, forget the anonymous call."

"Forgotten," Sebastian said automatically. "It wouldn't have brought us far at all. We may assume that we are dealing with two different people right now." He might as well tell Lau as soon as he had spare time at hand.

"What are you drawing this time?" the boy asked all of a sudden.

"Not you," Sebastian replied with a small smile when Ciel huffed.

"I'm not expecting you to draw me all the time."

The artist chuckled and waved the boy closer. Ciel only did it reluctantly, which heightened Sebastian's amusement. When the boy stood in front of him, he turned him around so that Ciel's back was against his chest. He took Ciel's right hand and placed his paintbrush in it, closing his own around the smaller hand and relishing the warmth it emitted.

"I thought you are left-handed."

"I'm ambidextrous," Sebastian replied. "Although I do prefer using my left hand." He set the paintbrush on the canvas, guiding Ciel's hand as if the smaller one was the artist.

The boy stopped breathing for a second.

Sebastian wrapped his free arm around Ciel's middle, but the boy pinched it half-heartedly. "You're getting black paint all over me."

The artist didn't loosen his grip. "It's a good thing that you're wearing black then, right?"

Ciel sighed, leaning against Sebastian. The artist's breath was ghosting over the younger male's neck, but Ciel didn't show any sign of discomfort. However, he brushed his free hand over that spot, apparently trying to get rid of the ticklish feeling. Sebastian chuckled again. This young teen was a source of never ending amusement. Using the boy's hand, he finished the first layer of his new painting. Seeing the spectrum of colours he was using since having Ciel as his muse was interesting: Sebastian was using dark colours most of the time, there was only the occasional speck of a pastel blue or a cream colour or the shade of porcelain skin when the boy himself was in the painting. Little flickers of innocence. How intriguing.

Checking his wristwatch, Sebastian let go of Ciel's hands. "We should leave. I was supposed to bring you home after the ballet." They had followed Alois' invitation to see him dance as Tybalt in a new version of Romeo and Juliet, and while Sebastian wasn't happy about not having had his cousin around (Claude had been oddly protective of Alois, courtesy of their last meeting, Sebastian figured), he had to admit that Alois was quite good.

"Don't," Ciel said, "I don't feel like having to talk to Lizzie again."

Sebastian winced in mock sympathy. "That bad?"

"It's not as if you care." Ciel rolled his visible eye. "But yes, it's that bad."

"Stay with me, then."

"I can't."

"Why not? You get to stay up the whole night here."

Ciel huffed. "But that's because _you_ don't sleep, you dimwit."

The artist chuckled softly. "True."

"My aunt will ground me if I don't come back home tonight. I did the spontaneous sleep over a bit too often this month."

Sebastian shrugged non-apologetically, thinking of the nights in which Ciel simply had vanished and returned with a sleeved shirt from Sebastian's wardrobe and declared that he'd stay. He already had a spare uniform here and the guest room had officially become Ciel's room. "We might have overdone it." Not that he found that bad. The teen was great company.

"A bit," Ciel said dryly. He took a step to the side and went past Sebastian. "Alright then. Let's go."

Sebastian sighed at the way the boy ordered him around, but he followed obediently. "I'm not your butler. Please try to remember that."

"I'll try," Ciel drawled as he walked to the stairs. It didn't sound as if he intended to go through with what he just declared.

**OOO**

"How's life at the Midford's?" Undertaker asked the boy when they were gathered in his kitchen, the four of them, while dramatic classical music floated over to them. Alois had recently made a habit of coming over after school and work on something that Claude wasn't supposed to see. They were waiting for the tea water to boil and for Undertaker to move away from the doorway, but the former took its time and the latter seemed quite happy blocking the way.

Undertaker was the first to ask that particular question, Sebastian noticed. He himself tried it once, but Ciel hadn't answered. The wound must have still been raw one week after Madame Red's death, he guessed. It wasn't as if he understood the notion and workings of grief, really.

The boy looked up from Gregory's sketch pad. "It's alright."

"And your cousins are nice, yes?" Undertaker prodded, sounding more like he was going to hear the punch line of a joke very soon.

Ciel kept his expression unreadable. "They try."

"That's a no," Gregory said blandly.

"I know what a 'no' is, dear." Undertaker put a biscuit between his lips but didn't bite down yet. Sebastian frowned when Undertaker seemed to forget about the food right in front of his own face. Among the music was Alois' voice. Gregory prepared the tea, leaving his sketches with Ciel. The boy looked at them. "Do you enjoy the demon motive?"

"Quite," Gregory said. "Happens when you're around one from time to time."

Sebastian rolled his eyes. "That's exactly what happens when you cannot keep your silly assumptions to yourself," he said to Undertaker.

The man just giggled, speaking against the biscuit that he was still holding to his lips. "He came up with the comparison, not me."

Suddenly, there was a loud squeal of joy. Undertaker crushed his biscuit between his fingers and Ciel almost dropped Gregory's works. Alois pushed past Undertaker in the next second, rushing into the kitchen. "I'm gonna be a Faustus model!" he exclaimed happily, throwing his hands into the air. Even Gregory gave him a strange look.

"That's lovely," Ciel said dryly, automatically, as if he had a reservoir for retorts specifically designed for Alois. The older teen seemed completely unfazed by Ciel's dismissive tone and decided to wrap the arms he'd lifted into the air around Ciel's neck.

"Claude just called and he told me that there would be a test shooting and I'm going to be a model."

"One does not follow the other," Ciel said.

"Shut up, Phantomhive, and let me be happy for once," Alois snapped, voice suddenly dark and as sharp as a knife.

Ciel opened his mouth to answer, but Alois started giggling again and leaned forward, kissing the other boy straight. on. the. mouth. before letting go again and deciding to hug Gregory and keep him from putting the tea cups on a tray. "Somebody is quite energetic," Undertaker remarked. "Haven't you been dancing for the last two hours?"

"I'm just sooooo happy" Alois said with a wide (_shit-eating_, Ronald would say) grin. He let Gregory go to demonstrate how far his happiness extended with his arms, and the raven-haired young man stepped away immediately.

Ciel had woken up from the initial shock: He slowly grimaced as if he'd just seen something and understood bit by bit how disgusting it actually was. Then he wiped at his mouth with his sleeve, blushing and scowling and leaning against the wall and huffing. "Alois, that was uncalled for."

The blond teen laughed obnoxiously. Sebastian felt the sudden need to kick him out of the house. He couldn't, though, for this wasn't the Michaelis estate and Undertaker liked Alois for some idiotic reason.

"Geez, don't be so stiff about it." Alois rolled his eyes, but his attitude remained playful this time. He giggled again, a sound that grated on Sebastian's nerves. Ciel chose not to talk to Alois until Gregory brought the younger teen home.

"Do come back," Undertaker said as they went to his apprentice's car, "I might inform you of Sebastian's trick."

Ciel's only reaction to the statement was a pause before he climbed in the passenger's seat and slammed the door shut.

"That wasn't very nice," Sebastian said. He was further irritated by Undertaker's remark, and his hands itched to wrap around Ciel's arm and get him out of the car. He wanted to make it clear that this was _his_ muse after Alois had dared kiss him and keep the others away from the boy, especially those who thought of him as a demon in humanoid form. (Alois, an unending source of annoyance, was currently strutting around in the corridor with unzipped shorts and a too-large shirt, muttering something about hairpins.) "I have the feeling you're trying to make me hate you," Sebastian continued after a moment's thought.

"I'd do much more if that were true," Undertaker replied. "But I wouldn't be a very good friend if I didn't remind you of your strange… habits." He patted Sebastian's head affectionately before looking at his wristwatch. "Oh dear, it's late already! Let's watch some telly, shall we? The celebrity gossip is on and Gregory is not here to whine about me watching it."

* * *

_And so the fourth act has begun! I hope you enjoyed this chapter. Please leave your thoughts and comments )_

_**Next chapter coming this Saturday.**_


	22. Temptation II

**A/N: **Thank you for all the wonderful reviews! It's good to be back and see that you guys are there, too:D Have you seen Alex Beoulve's drawing for the last chapter yet? No? I recommend you go to her tumblr and check it out. It's really adorable!

**Chapter 19**

Lizzie had adopted the annoying habit of waking Ciel up before his alarm had the chance to do its job. "Cieeeeeeel," she cried out happily, and the boy felt like pressing a pillow against his face and stop breathing. "Rise and shine!"

"No." Ciel turned to the side. She'd come ten minutes early in order to beat his alarm. He'd never known that this would become some sort of competition between Lizzie and an inanimate object.

It was day forty at the Midford estate and Ciel hated having to live here. He slowly pushed back the covers and got out of the bed, thanking a higher entity that it was Friday, which meant that he wasn't going to return to this house until ten pm. Eleven, if he used the right words on Alexis (never Frances; she wasn't going to budge once she made up her mind).

"Are you going to that Gregory guy again?" Lizzie asked as he made his way into the bathroom. She was still wearing her nightgown and a morning robe.

Ciel stopped in front of the door. "Yes," he replied curtly and went inside, closing and locking the door behind him.

"Can I come, too?" Lizzie asked hopefully.

"No, Lizzie, you cannot." If she found out that Ciel only visited Undertaker and therefore Gregory half the time, she'd surely tell Aunt Frances. "You'd be bored. We're talking about art-related things. Music theory. Realistic drawing techniques. Photography. Please let me dress in peace."

She let him.

Breakfast, as always, was a tedious affair. Ciel couldn't find a reason for his cousin Edward's glaring at him, but he knew that he wasn't very welcome, especially not since Lizzie had found out that there had been marriages between cousins in Victorian England. He didn't know and didn't _care_ to know what she thought of it, but he had the slight feeling that the lip-gloss kisses had become a daily routine now, two to three times and always to his left cheek, for Lizzie had this other very annoying habit of hugging his left arm while she was at it, and Ciel didn't feel like telling her to stop. She should know herself.

She didn't, he quickly noticed, but… well, he didn't want to have an angry Aunt Frances at his heels for making Lizzie cry. It wasn't worth it.

At school, Ciel had a substitute teacher in math. She was a woman with a low voice, an impassive gaze, and was dressed in something that looked like Claude's variation of a qipao. The students thought she was weird, Ciel quickly realised, but he seemed to be the only one who actually noticed her fixation on him. He looked her straight in the eye whenever he caught her staring, and while she went on with the subject, she never broke eye contact until Ciel did, sensing that his classmates were about to notice.

"She's weird, that woman," Alois remarked the next day during PE when he had flopped down between Soma and Ciel, leaving the Indian boy a little perturbed and Finny never noticed because he was too busy cheering at basketball playing students.

Alois seemed annoyed. That might have something to do with the other boys not appreciating his talent for dancing. He had shown a few moves to Ciel just earlier, they were part of a dance he choreographed himself, but when the other boys called him gay, he had frowned, not because they had guessed right (Alois was a very, if maybe too open about his sexuality, Ciel had come to realise, much to the dismay of his male classmates ;Alois had this nasty habit of harassing the classmates one would consider as good-looking if he wasn't swooning about Claude's backside), but because they hadn't managed to form an opinion about his dance.

He'd been a bit cranky since then.

"Why do you think she's weird?" Ciel asked.

Alois huffed. "Because I don't like her."

"That is not a sufficient reason."

"She gave us a wrong name."

Ciel blinked. "She did?"

"Yeah," Alois replied, not caring whether Soma heard or not. "Contrary to you, I'm not interested in women, so I tend not to stare at them as if I contemplated shagging them."

Ciel scowled. "When did I look at her in that way?"

"All the time."

The younger teen refrained from telling Alois that the blond had got it all wrong. It didn't really matter and Alois would have forgotten about that particular detail by tomorrow.

"She has a Faustus membership card but when I searched her name in the database, it didn't come up." Alois shrugged. "She was in the main store yesterday evening before we closed, and the name on her card was another one."

"Maybe it's her sister's card," Ciel suggested.

"Did you see her sneaking around and appearing out of thin air everywhere? She's a fucking _ninja_."

"Everyone's a ninja to you, really. Though I'm pretty sure that ninja used to be Japanese."

"Fuck you, Phantomhive," Alois growled. "She's strange."

And that was when the substitute teacher entered the hall in a short blue qipao, exchanged a few words with the PE teacher who was staring into her cleavage, and was thus not really listening to what she was saying. He nodded anyway, and she waved at Ciel to come with her. The young teen frowned but got up from the bench, exchanging a mildly confused look with Soma and Finny. Alois gave him a 'see what I'm saying?'-look before he was called to the field.

"Please change," the woman said when Ciel caught up with her, "and take your things with you."

"Is something wrong?" Ciel asked, feeling a dull pain inside his chest. His thoughts went to his new family right away. Had something happened to Aunt Frances or Uncle Alexis?

"Nothing at all," the teacher said. "When you are finished, please leave the school. You will receive a phone call soon."

Ciel stared at her as she went away again, and then shot a discreet glance at his classmates who weren't very good at hiding their interest. As soon as they realised that he was looking at them, they scattered around a bit, very adamant on faking that they hadn't been gawking in the first place. Ciel rolled his eyes and left the hall.

After he had changed back into his uniform, Ciel checked the time. School would have been over soon, so why did he have to leave earlier? The substitute teacher wasn't around when he left the gym. What was going on here?

His phone rang. Ciel almost dropped it in shock.

"_Isn't Ran Mao a cutie?"_ the person on the other line asked as soon as Ciel answered.

Ciel blinked. "… Excuse me?" Was that Lau? "How on Earth did you get my number?"

"_Connections,"_ Lau answered vaguely.

"So her name really isn't Charlotte Donovan," Ciel stated.

"_That's the name she went by?_" Ciel could almost _hear_ the grin over the line. _"Sweet."_

"She's one of your people, I assume?"

"_Why yes, she is. But that's not the point."_

"Of course it isn't." Ciel wouldn't have believed that Lau had somehow mugged his phone number for small talk. He still was a criminal, no matter how friendly his voice sounded. And he had actually been one of those who hadn't bent a finger to help Ciel during the auction three years ago. "Care to tell me why you had me leave earlier?"

"_Yes. It's a nice day for late February, isn't it?"_

Ciel looked around. He was outside by now and for once, it wasn't raining. But the weather was still quite cold. "Are you trying to tell me something?"

"_My people have been watching Aleister Chamber for a while now."_

"… Any news?"

"_Not really, though I thought you might change that,"_ Lau answered. _"It seems he has decided to pick you up from school. See the black car?"_

The boy's gaze skimmed over the parked vehicles before he sighed exasperatedly. "There are many black cars."

"… _Really?"_ Lau sounded honestly surprised and completely thrown off the track.

Ciel scoffed at the phone. "Of course!"

"_Then wait for them to come to you. Aleister is in one of those cars, and it seems as if he wishes to talk to you."_

"What for?"

"_I'm not in his head, boy."_

Ciel shouldered his bag and slowly walked through the parking lot, walking towards the school's gates. "I don't feel like talking."

"_I wouldn't anger somebody like Mr Chambers as long as there's as good as nothing against him. He doesn't take rejection well."_

Ciel considered this. Then he understood: They wanted him to collect information! "There was a fight with –"

"_Your mother, yes. He stopped supporting her after that and the fire occurred just one month later."_ There were voices in the background, and Lau hummed in response to what they were saying before he returned to his conversation with Ciel_. "Don't worry. Nothing will happen to you; I don't wish to lose a dear friend and break the ties between our families. My people will be watching you, Ciel Phantomhive, if only for Sebastian's sake."_

"That's…" Ciel stopped himself from saying 'nice'. This wasn't about him being in danger, this was about him being of importance to Sebastian. But he was just a muse, wasn't he? A living inspiration, something corporeal, but something that Sebastian seemed to use up quite quickly and toss away. At least that was how it sounded when Undertaker spoke about it. How could Ciel possibly be as important to Sebastian as Lau implied?

"_If he tries anything, we will know,"_ Lau continued. _"Stay. There is information that even I cannot collect in the conventional way."_

Ciel grudgingly slowed his pace. "Alright."

"_Goodbye."_

Ciel hung up. When the phone landed in his pocket, he heard the engine of a car silently come to life a few metres behind him. A few moments later it was driving beside him slowly. Aleister Chamber smiled at him form inside the car and Ciel stopped walking. The car came to halt, too. "Good day, Mr Chamber."

"Aleister," the man corrected in a friendly tone. He got out of the car before the chauffeur was able to hurry and open the door for him. Extending a hand, he added in his usual dramatic voice, "Good to see you, my beautiful robin. My violinist of wonders."

Ciel reluctantly shook the gloved hand. He couldn't help but notice that Aleister had never not worn gloves in public or even in his own house when Ciel and Aunt Anne had spent the night there. Was there a reason? Did he want to hide something?

… Like the smell of blood, for example?

Ciel felt sick to his stomach and let go of the Viscount's hand first. "I didn't know that you had a relative who goes to this school."

"Oh, I don't," Aleister replied, waving a hand dismissively. "I came to pick you up."

"Me?" Ciel acted as if he were surprised. "But my Aunt will do that."

"Tell her you have a date with your sponsor," Aleister cut in, tone sharp but his smile smeared with sweetness. "It's not something you should take lightly, you see?"

Ciel remained silent. Everything in his head screamed MURDERER, but he simply shrugged. "I'm sorry, but I have other plans."

The smile dropped off his face in an instant. "You don't."

"I… don't?" Ciel muttered sceptically.

"Exactly." Aleister beamed at him. "There is the matter of the exposition in April that I would like to talk to you about. Also, there is this marvellous café I wanted to take you to. They have the most delicious cakes and pastries that I have ever eaten." He looked at the floor, his mood swinging from delighted to sad in an instant. "I used to go there with my baby brother…"

Ciel refrained from rolling his eyes when Aleister starting bearing strong a resemblance to a kicked puppy. Nothing had been heard of Edgar in the last few weeks, and it didn't seem as if they would anytime soon. The police were about to give up on it. Ciel felt a tad sorry for Edgar and Maurice. Who knew where they were? Were they even alive at this point in time?

"Let me see that café," he said.

Aleister stepped aside for Ciel to climb in the car. The boy looked out for any people watching him as soon as the vehicle started moving again. Aleister was seated to his left, blabbering happily, and Ciel wondered why everybody felt the need to talk to him that much. He preferred staying with Sebastian: The artist was able to stay silent for more than two seconds. It was almost with regret that Ciel informed Sebastian of the change of plans in the most elusive way he could muster. He also called his aunt and told her where he was headed and with whom. Frances only let him because, well, this was the Viscount of Druitt.

**OOO**

The café was nice, Ciel had to admit, and the cake even better. Aleister was taking small sips from some kind of vanilla cappuccino, stubbornly keeping his gloves on. Ciel wondered aloud why he wouldn't take them off, but Aleister shrugged and changed the subject.

When he searched the café with his gaze, Ciel spotted the no-teacher-at-all sitting by a table next to the entrance together with a young man who had scales tattooed on his _face_. Those two were Lau's people. Were there more?

Conversation was harder than Ciel had thought. Aleister talked readily and very, very much, but when it was Ciel's turn to say something, he found himself oddly incapable of speaking. It might have to do with the way Aleister was leering at him from time to time and how he gestured so much with his hands, his gloves catching Ciel's attention. This man was a murderer, wasn't he? Ciel would need proof, but he caught a whiff of roses, a smell that the kidnapper had worn from time to time despite being a man.

Aleister put his cup down and rested his chin on his hand. "You would really make a wonderful songbird," he said. "My offer still stands."

"Sorry," Ciel replied curtly, remembering an exchange similar to this one, "still not mute."

"Life might change that."

"It hasn't."

"Yet."

Ciel's head snapped up. "Pardon?"

"Oh, I'm just telling you not to rule it out," Aleister said, showing his teeth when he grinned. "Life is full of surprises, isn't it?"

"I… guess so," Ciel answered lamely. And if this wasn't a good moment to change the subject… "I must say it certainly came as a surprise to me when I learned that you knew my mother, Rachel Phantomhive."

Aleister stilled completely. He chuckled. "Why yes, I knew her. This world is indeed small."

"Just this city," Ciel replied nonchalantly, glad that he was now steering the conversation. He tried out a sad look. "I lost her early, as you might know, and already I'm forgetting the sound of her voice."

Aleister pulled a face somewhere between empathy, sadness, and faint disgust. "She had an angelic, kind and soothing voice," he finally said. "And she was a brilliant young woman, a promising talent with a little boy and a successful husband. When I first saw the three of you together in your saloon, I remember how I thought that each of you could make it far." He absently regarded his cappuccino.

"You and my mother were… friends?" Ciel asked.

"I supported her," Aleister said, "since she didn't want the money her husband would have readily given to her." His gaze searched the room. "I had more useful connections than Vincent anyway. She said she wanted to be a musician, not a business woman."

Ciel put his fork aside. Half of his cake was still on the plate, but he didn't want to eat it anymore. "I never knew that you supported her, too," he lied.

"You were very young when she started her career, and we weren't close enough for regular house calls." Twisting a strand of his hair between his fingers, Aleister looked at Ciel in a considering manner. "I'd like to change that with you."

"Did you support her until the end?" Ciel asked, stubbornly ignoring the last bit.

Aleister seemed to have locked gazes with someone behind Ciel. He pointed at the boy's piece of cake. "Do you still want that?" he asked, his expression hard.

Ciel looked at it. He shrugged. "No, but it was delicious. I'm full."

"That's good. Let me give you a ride home?"

Why was he suddenly trying to get away?

The Viscount paid for both of them, took Ciel by his hand and hurried out of the café. When the boy turned his head slightly, he saw the man with the scales get up, looking ready to dash after them. Ciel shook his head and surprisingly, the man sat down again.

"Is something wrong?" Ciel asked when they were sitting in the car.

"There are just things I forgot about," Aleister said. "I need to sort them out." He wrapped his hands around Ciel's. "I enjoyed our time together, though. Maybe we should do that again? At my house?"

Ciel stared at the gloved hands. "I don't know."

"Me and my songbirds would enjoy a private concert," Aleister said. A thumb brushed over the knuckles of Ciel's hand, covered in satin and probably reeking of blood. How high was the possibility that Aleister could be a killer?

Ciel was brought home safe and just a little bit rattled, just a little bit confused, and he sat down in the centre of his new room (white walls, white furniture, white beddings, and Sebastian's paintings) and played the violin for hours. Memories crept up the length of his back, settling in his brain and robbing this night's sleep. Memories of dimly lit basements, crying children and the ever-present stench of blood and roses.

* * *

_So far so good. I really enjoyed writing this chapter despite of the lack of Sebastian. Aleister needed his five minutes after the interlude. Anyway, thoughts?_

_See y'all on Wednesday!_


	23. Temptation III

**A/N:** I like writing Ash a bit too much, but well, he needs his development, too. Every character gets some special time with either Ciel or Sebastian *nod* **Thank you for all these wonderful reviews and favs/alerts! We've reached 100 alerts by now! Thank you so much!** :D I wish I could respond to all of your reviews, but there isn't enough time these days... But know that I read all your reviews and I appreciate each and every one of them.

Also, there will only be weekly updates until further notice. If I mention it up here, you might not notice...

**Warnings:** Creepiness. While we're at it, this act will have an increasing amount of that. I thought you should know. As for the next act... Hehehe. It's going to be twisted. So yeah, stuff is going downhill in this story. (But this act is far from over.)

**Chapter 20**

Sebastian breathed out carefully. "I am going to kill Lau."

"Don't," Ciel said, "you're just an artist. No real muscles come from holding paint brushes, right?"

"I take that as an insult."

"Besides, he had people to look after me." Ciel shrugged, not meeting Sebastian's gaze.

The artist sat down on the other side of the table, supporting his head with his hand much like Ciel was doing right now. "Are you telling me that you trust someone like Lau?"

"Are you telling me you don't? Did you change your mind?"

"Not really," Sebastian almost drawled. "I thought you didn't like criminals."

"I don't." Ciel sighed, and they were sitting close enough for the air to faintly tickle Sebastian's chin. "But it is a choice between the possible killer of my family and the criminal who simply did his despicable business back then by standing around and making sure the sold kids didn't escape."

Sebastian considered this carefully. "Both sound unpleasant."

"They do, don't they." Was Ciel staring at Sebastian's mouth? "Not that it matters now. I think visiting him isn't a good idea." He got up from the table, missing the soft exhale that Sebastian gave in something akin to annoyance.

"Of course it isn't," he said.

Ciel got his violin and rested it between his chin and shoulders as he tightened the bow hair. "Though I'm curious as to why he fought with my mother. I figure that their quarrel was the reason for him to stop supporting her."

"Would it be enough of a reason to kill her and her family?" Sebastian asked.

Ciel winced, but brought the bow to his violin and started to play. "Would it be something he'd want revenge for?"

"Maybe he needed her to keep quiet," Sebastian suggested, noting that the tune that Ciel was playing was completely unfitting for this conversation. You just didn't play almost seductive music when discussing the death of people close to you. Even Sebastian knew that.

"Do you think she found something out?" Ciel asked. It didn't seem as if he realised his faux pas. "A secret?"

"A dark one, perhaps." Sebastian shrugged. "We can assume that he had been a drug addict at some point. Maybe he didn't want her to tell the public."

"You don't kill people for that," Ciel pointed out.

"Others have died for less."

There was a short pause in which Ciel walked over to the window; Sebastian remembered where Ciel had been just three years ago. Had the children died there, too? Sebastian had only heard of Ciel returning after having gone missing, but nobody had ever breathed a word about the other children. This was something Sebastian would like to ask the boy about, he wanted to know how Ciel felt about it and capture it in the darkest colours, but this may not be the right time to demand this.

(It was funny how Sebastian suddenly considered a muse's feelings again.)

Ciel resumed his practise again. "How does that sound?" he asked.

"Like a promiscuous girl," Sebastian said flatly.

"I was actually going for _seductive mistress_, thank you very much," Ciel replied.

Sebastian refrained from commenting on that. "I never knew you were the type to compose something like that."

"It's not for me, it's for Alois."

"His silly dance?"

Ciel hummed. "It seems as if he lied to Claude once, telling him you'd buy a pair of dancing shoes for him. This resulted in Claude designing a whole dancer's collection for his brand, naming it after Alois." There were long, drawn notes that quickly turned into a short run and Ciel closed his eyes for a brief moment, giving in to the intoxicating pull of the melody. "Alois will do his dance for this collection and it's supposed to appear on telly."

Sebastian processed this for a few moments. "I fail to see why you're helping them out."

"It's for my own benefit," Ciel answered. "The credits for this melody will go to me. Everybody knows the Faustus brand. Claude will owe me. And Alois won't nag me for a week. There are only advantages. I won't even have to interact with Claude."

Closing his eyes, Sebastian listened to the music intently. He would suggest a second instrument to accompany the violin, but Ciel had most certainly already thought of that, hadn't he? The air was growing thicker by the second, heavier, and suddenly the artist was sure he could smell cigarette smoke. There was the chatter of people around him, the clinking of glasses, female laughter… And a warm, light weight came to rest on his lap, fingers trailed over the fabric of his shirt, hot breath tickled the skin of his throat –

Sebastian opened his eyes abruptly and didn't find his muse in his lap. Instead, Ciel was right where he'd been one minute ago; still playing the tune he composed for Alois. If he didn't know better, Sebastian would swear that the warmth of a body was lingering on his own.

"Does this music have an age restriction after you've paired it with Alois?" Sebastian asked.

"He'll probably make porn out of it," Ciel mused. Then he snorted softly, the corners of his mouth twitching into a small smile.

"Don't tell me that this is what you're going for."

"It's called 'Temptation', not 'We Are Having Sexual Intercourse'."

"That's certainly what I've been hearing."

"Pardon?"

Sebastian looked away. "Nothing."

Ciel blinked at him. "Alois wouldn't go too far if it's called 'Temptation', at least I don't think so." The music came to a soft, quiet end; the last note lingering even after it wasn't audible anymore.

Sebastian found himself breathing out softly, almost shakily, but he would never dare tell a soul that this melody and the instrumentalist had created quite the tempting image, indeed.

**OOO**

March brought a lot of rain and Ciel was texting Sebstian furiously as he made his way to Ash. It was almost endearing.

Strike that, it was _adorable_.

_I cannot BELIEVE you left me here with my cousin._

_Calm down_, Sebastian texted back while waiting in front of a traffic light, a small bouquet lying on the passenger's seat,_ it's not as if she'll kill you. Besides, wasn't it you who said you had other plans for today?_

_That was **before** you told me about visiting Ash, _was what came back immediately_._

_You don't like him._

_True. You were trying to avoid him the last time you met, weren't you?_

Sebastian mulled over this until he got the next chance to reply. _Have you just implied that your presence would lessen the pain of being around Ash? Quite self-confident, aren't we?_

_Shut up._

The artist entered Ash's grounds and went up the driveway. As he got out of the car, carefully tucking the bouquet under his arm and rang the bell, he quickly replied. _Dear Ciel, I'm not even talking._

_I'm going to switch off my phone right about now._

Sebastian didn't reply instantly to this one. A maid opened the door and let him in with a smile. She did not ask for his name or the reason as to why he was here, and moved aside before Sebastian had the opportunity to state either. She held up a hand and hurried up the stairs. He frowned at her retreating form and slipped out of his shoes and coat while somehow typing away on his phone. _Although I must admit that you're right. Your presence is calming and inspiring. And let's not forget how nice you actually look next to me._ And what would he give to have Ciel around right now?

_You self-important prick._ Funny. This hadn't even taken a minute. The artist smirked at the display.

_I thought your phone was off. There goes a perfectly fine good morning note_. Sebastian put his phone away.

"Sebastian?"

At the sound of the very familiar voice, the artist raised his gaze to the flight of stairs that probably led to a cellar from which Ash appeared. "Ash."

The sculptor smirked, gloved fingers straightening out his white shirt. He was even wearing them indoors now? That must be Aleister's influence. They both reminded him of his cousins: Claude and William both had an affinity for gloves lately, no matter whether it was hot or cold outside. They probably all had a repertoire of gloves of different fabrics, neatly (obsessively) arranged in their own drawer.

"It's a surprise that you came," Ash said when he finally stood in front of Sebastian. "We all know you've been ignoring me for the past years."

"That again?" Sebastian asked, though he regretted ever having attended the man's New Year's party. He should have listened to his guts. There must have been a reason as to why he'd never attended in the first place, and right now, there it was, smiling at him and almost showing teeth. "

Ash's gaze caught the bouquet in Sebastian's hands. "Flowers?"

"They're for Angela," Sebastian clarified. Now that he knew that the woman's grave was here, he couldn't come empty-handed, could he? It had been a tedious affair, he hated faking sentimentality that he didn't and would never possess, but his memory was good enough (who was he fooling, his memory tended to be remarkable most of the time) for him to remember Angela's favourite flowers.

"White lilies," Ash uttered as if in awe. He smiled at Sebastian, and that smile was so honest it hurt. For a short moment, he could see Ash like he'd been years ago, beaming for hours when Angela had a good day. Lively cello music had filled the air of their little house, and Ash had been more vulnerable in his hope than on any other day.

Sebastian had duly taken note of that.

Ash took the flowers from the other man's grasp. "That is very kind of you. Never thought I'd see the day."

"You're the one to talk."

The sculptor hummed. "Thank you. Angela appreciates it." He lowered his gaze, checking the area around Sebastian. "Where is the boy? Dead, by any chance?"

"Have you spoken to Undertaker?" Sebastian asked and refrained from rolling his eyes.

"He spoke to me about five years ago. Told me what you wouldn't tell me." Ash sighed and fiddled with his gloves. "It's a miracle that I stayed. But you haven't answered my question."

Sebastian considered strangling Ash. And then Undertaker. "He's very much alive. Sorry to disappoint."

"You aren't disappointing me at all," Ash replied serenely.

"I know you don't like him."

"You know me too well."

"That's why I haven't brought him with me."

The sculptor blinked in mock (?) surprise. "Oh my, are you actually considering my feelings?"

No. Sebastian was considering Ciel's patience. The boy didn't seem to like the sculptor much. In need for a change of subject, the artist nodded at the maid who had reappeared from downstairs. "I think she looks familiar."

"You do?" Ash turned around to face her, and when he locked gazes with Sebastian again, he seemed careful about his next words. "I've had her around for three months. You couldn't have met her at the New Year's party. Maybe you're mistaken."

"In fact," Sebastian went on, "she looks awfully familiar. But then again, some of the girls that Aleister picks up share many traits, don't they?"

Ash didn't budge.

"She can't talk, can she?"

"She has no _voice_. I suppose she could whisper, but I have yet to hear her try." Ash shrugged. "Is that a problem for you?" His eyes narrowed.

"No," Sebastian said with a frown. There he was again, pushing Ash's buttons without even intending to. Why was the man so sensitive, anyway? "Why is she working for you?"

"Well, she turned eighteen this January, so Aleister encouraged her to let go. I said I was in need of a new maid. So far so good, she agreed to work for me, but when she realised that she'd be separated from Aleister, things became a little bit ugly. It took a while until she was willing to leave." He waved her closer and showed the pink scar on her cheek to Sebastian. "I didn't do it. Just in case you thought I might. I'm not violent towards women."

Sebastian nodded indulgently. "I never suspected you were." He regarded the girl as she skittered away. "Does Aleister always send his songbirds out after they've turned eighteen?"

"He wants them to stand on their own two feet," Ash said.

But he'd also adopted them and handled them as if they were pricey dolls on display and for the whole world to see. Sebastian looked into the direction which the girl had taken and shook his head. He'd be damned if he ever understood Aleister. On second thought, he didn't even want to know what was going on inside that man's head. Besides, the Viscount was a suspect; the way he let go of songbirds after they reached a certain age might be better for them than staying around. Although it also made Aleister's need to stay among little children and adolescents slightly disconcerting…

Sebastian refused to go down that particular valley. It wasn't as if he was any better when it came to Ciel (although he forgot about the boy's age most of the time and as long as Ciel didn't behave age appropriately).

He was startled out of his thoughts when satin touched his hand, distant warmth surrounding it. "Your hands are still remarkable," Ash murmured as if in thought.

Sebastian cocked an eyebrow. "Still intending to chop them off?"

"I know how to preserve them," Ash said. "I'm sure the practise would come in… handy."

Sebastian almost faltered, but he wasn't a Michaelis for nothing. His body didn't betray him as Ash turned his hand and brushed his fingers over Sebastian's pulse as if to see whether the implied message made him nervous. "I'd really hate it if you did that to me," Sebastian drawled.

Ash smiled serenely and let go. "I can imagine."

"I'd never forgive you."

"How unfortunate." Ash kept his facial expression up. "I'm sure your family will avenge you."

Sebastian looked at the ceiling, controlling the sudden surge of anger. "That was a low blow," he said honestly.

Ash merely clicked his tongue once. Then he turned around and waved for Sebastian to follow him, the lilies still in his hands. Judging from the direction he'd taken, they weren't going to the chapel. "Like in the old days."

"Not really," Sebastian countered, wondering _why_ he was indeed following the man.

"Why not? We were quarrelling, too."

"At the end, yes. But what we were doing before that is called _banter_."

Ash stopped, turning around. Incomprehension was written all over his refined features. "So what I just said can't be considered as banter?"

What was wrong with that man? Sebastian shook his head. "It was insulting, actually."

Ash pondered over that. "Oh," he said airily, shrugged, and then continued down the hallway.

"Do you think threatening to cut off my hands is bantering?"

Ash chuckled. "I was serious about that one, dear. I always am."

At that, Sebastian carefully pushed his hands into his pockets. It wasn't anything he wasn't used to. He hadn't been lying when he'd told Ciel that Ash had a unique way of showing his affection. And yes, threatening to cut off Sebastian's hands was showing the other how much Ash actually cared. Not that Sebastian could understand the strange turns the man's thoughts always took. Sebastian wondered what would happen should he present the other artist with a knife and hold out his hands to him. Ash had changed enough for Sebastian to doubt the security of his limbs as soon as sharp objects were involved…

"Here we are," Ash suddenly said, still sounding as if he'd taken off to another world. Sebastian watched him open a door made of very light wood.

The room behind it was as black as a void.

Sebastian entered in silent wonder, taking in the large windows and the statues, busts, and sketches lining the walls. Ash couldn't contrast this room from any other if he tried.

"Welcome to my atelier!" the white-haired man announced, spreading his arms wide. He put the flowers on a paint-stained desk and pulled out a chair. Not that Sebastian was offered a seat.

"It's different," Sebastian commented politely.

"I know," Ash said, sounding pleased. He took out a sketch book, chose a pencil from a cup full of them, and leaned against his desk.

Sebastian tilted his head to the side. "I thought this was about sculpturing. Don't act as if you need a sketch beforehand. I know you don't."

"I am going to carve you out of stone." Ash shrugged. "But I figured I can draw you beforehand."

Sebastian looked around and found a chair. He felt Ash's gaze on his back as he pulled it in front of the other man and sat down. "It looks as if I should return the favour," he said, nodding at Ash's stash of sketchbooks on the far side of the desk.

Violet eyes widened. This time, the shock was definitely faked. "Oh, my. What would your muse think?"

"It's just practise, Ash. I see some wrinkles that haven't been there before."

Ash appeared tempted to shout. When he opened his mouth, he was as calm as always: "Isn't this like seeing your ex-partner behind your current partner's back?"

Sebastian frowned mildly. "It's not."

"It might as well be."

"You of all people should know that it's not."

Ash pursed his lips in a way that told Sebastian he was trying not to laugh and for a moment the sound of a pencil moving over paper was all that filled the room. "It still seems like betrayal to me. Is he that boring? Are you losing interest? I wouldn't blame you, he's just a kid after all, young but talented but boring, surely you can do better than that, and on top of that he's -"

"That's enough, Ash." Sebastian stared the other man down. "I'm not going to draw you."

Ash's grin was quick and sharp enough to split a single hair in two. "Why not? Please do."

Sebastian did not move to accept the sketch pad and pencil when they were handed to him.

With a small nod to himself, Ash put them back on the desk before continuing his sketch. "You're angry."

"Not really," Sebastian lied. "But I'm going to leave nevertheless."

"This is the second time I've made you angry."

"You've always had unique conversation skills. I'm not angry."

"Are you trying to reassure me?"

"Wouldn't dream of it." This was true in a way. First of all, he wasn't angry but _livid_, and secondly, he didn't want to admit defeat to Ash, especially not when he was like that. Even though the changes were minor, the consequences were tremendous: It seemed as if Sebastian had to unravel Ash again, start from the beginning and slowly peel off every inch of skin and muscle, as if he had to bring the bare bones back to the lighter places of his mind and scrutinise them once more. Ash was a puzzle again and Sebastian hated it. For here he was, wanting to strangle the man for insulting Ciel like that, and yet he was… suddenly, sorely, shockingly _tempted_. Ash himself had become interesting again, because Ash surely was out of his mind, broken beyond repair and still cracking further, and that was _infatuating_. Sebastian stared at Ash's gloved hand holding the pencil and wanted to capture the man himself, the way he blinked, breathed and lived, in a painting, in numerous paintings, _again_, and see how deep Ash could really fall. He wanted to use his sweetest words and built a whole wall between Ash and the rest of the world. He wanted –

The colour of Ciel's blue eye invaded his mind, calming the storm inside. Ciel still had secrets to tell. Other things to give. Ciel wasn't boring, not at all. Actually, he was quite the contrary. And Sebastian wanted him very, very much. (Definitely more than Ash.)

"Done," Ash suddenly said. Sebastian rose at once. Surprisingly enough, Ash didn't intervene. "When are you coming back?" he asked instead. His tone oozed smugness for an unknown reason.

_Never_, Sebastian wanted to say. He was not blind, he could see, hear and feel what Ash was doing. "Next week," he said instead, and that was where he understood Ash's aforementioned smugness. What was wrong with him? "You better start to sculpture by then, or else I won't come back." He took the flowers. Ash did not move nor did he say anything. His stare was beginning to unnerve even Sebastian. "Let me bring this to your sister."

"Do that," Ash muttered as he turned his attention back to his sketch pad.

Sebastian exited the room with the flowers, remembering the way back and then where he'd find the small chapel. Angela's statue greeted him from across the room, its appearance ethereal. The room was, in fact, from another world. Taking long strides, Sebastian approached the glass separating the statue from the rest of the room and put the flowers on the floor. He wouldn't enter the actual grave beneath the trap door. Stepping back, Sebastian turned to leave. "I still don't know who killed you," he muttered to the emptiness of the small hall. "Care to tell me?"

There was no answer. He hadn't expected anything else.

Sebastian left the Landers estate, feeling as if he'd just came from another, dream-like dimension. Blinking against the late winter sun, he faced the villa one last time. It was as if he'd been ripped out of context and sense, and there was a strange sensation in his throat. If somebody asked him about what had happened, he wouldn't be able to give a proper response.

Silently wondering, Sebastian kept his features blank, shook his head at his own imagination and climbed into his car. He thought he heard the fluttering of wings. Of very large wings.

There was nothing, his eyes told him. He closed the door and started the engine.

* * *

_GUYS. Have you noticed that **Halloween** falls on a **Wednesday**? Do you know what that means? I'll do my best to give you a creepy chapter!_

_But since Halloween will be in a few weeks, let's stay in the present. Don't forget your reviews! We'll see each other next Wednesday :D_


	24. Temptation IV

**Chapter 21**

"Want to know what his secret is?"

The camera seemed to leer at him. Ciel kept his expression neutral, and his violin remained tucked against his side. The bow's tip touched the floor, and he handled it as if it were a cane though he wasn't putting any of his weight on it. The tapestry's white and heavy red behind him contrasted his black suit. It was from Faustus, custom made, and it itched where it touched his bare skin when he thought of Claude having sketched its design a couple of weeks ago. He might have touched it. Ciel almost shuddered when he remembered how cold Claude's fingers had felt on his scars. Disgusting.

It seemed like whenever the tension between the Michaels's cousins was strong enough for the media to catch on (there'd been a lively discussion between William and Claude in public about a week ago), the three of them underwent tremendous efforts to keep up their image of a happy family. Suddenly everyone in Sebastian's circle of acquaintances had to find a set of Faustus clothes, William was only seen wearing his cousin's suits nowadays while Sebastian opted for the casual elegant collection, Claude had spent a couple of nights at a Michaelis hotel in Berlin (leaving Alois to spend the nights at Soma's, Undertaker's/Gregory's, and the Midford estate (Ciel didn't like thinking back to that night)), and William had decorated his hotels in Paris, London, Tokyo and New York with Sebastian's paintings. It was ridiculous. Definitely ridiculous.

_Click._

The boy blinked, locking gazes with the photographer. Undertaker grinned at him, emerald eyes gleaming expectantly. "Whose secret?" Ciel drawled.

"Sebastian's."

Ciel rolled his eye. Inevitably, he thought of his eye patch. They had replaced it with a lacy construction that maybe was supposed to be fashionable, but he found it stupid and unnecessary. If anything, he preferred his medical eye patch to that. Undertaker had described the silken patch as 'pirate-y' and the medical one apparently made him look like a sick little child. The pictures were going to be in London's streets and on Aleister's blog which, surprisingly, was very well-known and loved. Ciel had taken a look at it once, and while Aleister had nice photographs, his purple prose was even worse when he had the opportunity to write it down. How could people want to read that?

"No," Ciel answered.

Undertaker frowned at him. "Are you serious?"

"Yes. Are you not?"

"I am. That's rare, you know."

Of course Ciel knew. He still didn't feel like listening to any so-called secrets. The whole thing sounded like a conspiracy theory to him. A soft breath escaped him before he adopted a new pose. Undertaker hummed; he might have dropped the subject. For now. Ciel almost sighed at that. With friends like this, Sebastian didn't need enemies.

This was the Viscount's house; Ciel had visited him, after all. Not in the way that Aleister would have preferred – alone – but with Undertaker and Gregory and Sebastian. The mansion was buzzing with life, there were other photographers and artists who were going to attend the exhibition that would also take place on Aleister's grounds. Ciel had seen painters, photographers, sculptors, musicians, writers, dancers and even a few actors, designers and models entering and exiting the Viscount's estate. He hadn't been aware of it, and Aunt Anne must have been sneaky about it, but he learned that Aleister had founded a… society which he called 'The Phoenix'. It consisted basically of him and his closest contacts (which were many), faceless men and women who appreciated the arts, and his favourite artists. This sounded good and well, if Aleister only wouldn't strike this incredibly idiotic pose as soon as someone mentioned The Phoenix. Ciel had seen it for the first time today while looking at the map of an artist who called himself Chesslock. Being seventeen years old, the guy was one of the youngest artists he'd talked to, and Ciel had expected him to be a childish idiot. It turned out he was just… weird. He was no Gregory or, heaven forbid, Undertaker, but if Ciel had to make a list of the weirdest people, he'd be in the top five, just beneath Ash Landers. (It should go unmentioned that Ciel had yet to encounter somebody weirder than Undertaker.)

While they had been talking, Chesslock had mentioned the Viscount's society and how his membership would open many doors for him. Aleister had stuck his head into the large saloon to say hello, and as soon as he'd heard the two magical words, he'd kicked up a leg and put one hand behind his head, the red wine sloshing dangerously in the glass held by the other hand. Chesslock had tried to keep himself from laughing, cheeks reddening from the effort, while Ciel had been way too bewildered to do anything but stare.

Similar moments like this had happened throughout the whole afternoon. Aleister had even shown them how to strike the silly pose, and Ciel wouldn't have felt more stupid had he tried.

Sebastian, always somewhere around the boy (much to his relief, not that Ciel would ever dare say it out loud), had usually spared himself from the silliness by retreating to the corners of a room whenever Aleister had entered it.

Ciel thought he should follow this piece of unsaid advice.

"Are you done yet?" a familiar voice rang through the room and Ciel rolled his eyes. Speak of the devil…

With a poison green apple in one hand, Sebastian approached them casually.

"What does it look like?" Undertaker asked with a grin. He pointed at the fruit when Sebastian came to a halt next to him. "Did you bring me a snack?"

"Not in this lifetime," Sebastian said with a smirk and bit into the apple. Ciel watched the muscles in his jaw work with more interest than he assumed was appropriate. "You didn't answer my question."

Undertaker hummed in thought. "Well, we've got enough pictures to choose from. Yes, we're done."

Ciel breathed out as Undertaker switched off the bright light surrounding him. "Finally."

"Do you want to see the pictures, dear?" Undertaker asked, waving him closer. Sebastian had already inched even closer to his friend to have a better look. While the two of them seemed undisturbed by the proximity, Ciel felt an irrational flash of anger. Undertaker was certainly an individual; he made good tea and sometimes told jokes that everyone could laugh at; he was good company, had the gift of observation and had proven to be of help when needed. But while Sebastian was his friend, Undertaker accused him of being either a monster or a murderer. In the next moment, they were almost cuddling while looking at the pictures the photographer had taken. Ciel didn't know why, but this bond made him… mad. He didn't want to be angry with Undertaker, he didn't dislike him… But still. There was this bond that came from years of knowing each other. Even if such accusations were insulting, even if Undertaker must be pushing at the bonds of their friendship, Sebastian stayed, and Undertaker didn't stop the other man from entering his house. Sebastian had yet to take the keys away which he had entrusted the photographer with and Undertaker had yet to actively antagonise Sebastian. Words were one thing, after all, and actions following those words would never be taken. Accusing Sebastian of murder seemed not only like a make-believe conspiracy theory but also like a highly offending joke. Maybe that was why Sebastian still allowed Undertaker to stay right where he was. It was for the laughs, after all. Nothing serious.

Ciel frowned softly. Despite the laughing fits he got out of it, did Undertaker actually view those muses' deaths and Sebastian's involvement as a joke? He looked the man over: His black pullovers in which he practically swam, the pair of black skinny jeans and his leather boots, the way his hair always fell into his eyes (when was the last time he'd combed it?). Undertaker seemed harmless at first sight, but when Ciel came to think of it, there was a lot lurking beneath the surface. In fact, what he showed must be only the tip of the iceberg, Ciel was sure of it. Undertaker wasn't stupid, and he was anchored in this reality, even if he didn't appear that way most of the time. He wasn't harmless at all. Surely he was capable of many things that Ciel wouldn't have expected of him.

Undertaker might take the whole thing about Sebastian's past muses seriously. And if someone like him thought of it that way…

… shouldn't Ciel be doing the same?

An arm was wrapped around his shoulders and Ciel was pulled flush against Sebastian's side. "What the hell?" he asked irritably, trying to push away from the raven-haired man.

The artist looked at him in an innocent manner. "What?"

"I can't breathe, you oaf," Ciel complained. The arm circling him loosened just a tiny bit. It was better than nothing.

"Ooooh, look at this one!" Undertaker crowed from Sebastian's other side, almost shoving his camera into their faces. Ciel was still standing between many emotions, his thoughts were racing, and he barely glanced at the picture. The warmth of Sebastian's body was comforting and too much to bear at the same time. Despite that, Ciel rested his head against Sebastian's chest, Undertaker could think what he wanted to, and looked up when the artist took another bite from his apple. Watching him eat that damned fruit was way too interesting.

Sebastian noticed that Ciel was staring at him and halted in the middle of bringing the apple to his mouth. "Want a bite?" he asked.

Undertaker, who had gone back to Sebastian's other side, now looking for other nice pictures, cackled madly at that. Ciel wanted to tell him to shut up and stop being confusing while he was at it.

"From your half-eaten apple?" Ciel asked with a scoff. "What do you think I am? A rubbish bin?"

Sebastian shrugged. "Actually, I genuinely offered to share my apple with you," he said dryly.

Ciel looked at him dubiously. Then he snatched it from Sebastian's hand. "I do prefer sweets," he grumbled before searching the apple for an unbitten patch. "And I don't fail to see the symbolism."

"You're too smart for your own good," Sebastian said lightly.

Ciel shrugged, and then he took a bite. His cheeks felt hot.

"This is certainly a new strategy," Undertaker chimed, ruining the moment, and Ciel's face grew even hotter in embarrassment.

"My dear friend," Sebastian started slowly, "sometimes I want to hurt you."

"Aw, you don't hurt people like me. You know that I'm going to lay your corpse out, don't you? It might lose a few limbs if you hurt me." Undertaker giggled, and Ciel felt the hotness leave his face in an instant. The apple's aftertaste in his mouth transformed into ash.

But Sebastian grinned, not perturbed in the least. "Not if you die first, old man."

"Well, I'd still have Greggie to go through with the threat. He's my legacy. Besides, you aren't much younger than me." Undertaker poked his friend with one long fingernail, and his smile held a fondness that seemed truly misplaced at the moment.

Behind them, the door opened without warning. The three of the turned around and Ciel, realising how Sebastian's arm had tightened around him once more, wriggled out from the half embrace. What would people think if they saw them like this?

"Are you done yet?" called an over-the-top voice from behind the door and sure enough, Aleister Chamber strutted into the room, followed by five songbirds between the ages six and maybe… sixteen? Seventeen? They all wore the same uniform consisting of red dresses and white flowers in their hair, and Aleister was holding the youngest girl's hand to which she clung as if the other girls would snatch it away. Some of those girls seemed to become annoyed when they spotted the set up. One turned to leave, but Aleister noticed this even though she'd been walking behind him in the first place. He spun her around by the shoulder and rested his hand at the base of her neck. She merely continued popping her chewing gum but she also straightened in a show of pride.

Each of the girls carried a flute. Ciel almost flinched when one of the instruments caught the light. Flutes usually used to imitate a bird's song were played by mute girls referred to as songbirds. In his opinion, it added poison to the irony.

"I've gathered my most favourite birds together and we are ready to have our features eternalised in order to enrapt the commoners with our aristocratic beauty." Aleister gave a dramatic exhale and looked at something that wasn't there. A girl clapped. "Are you ready for that?" he asked the photographer.

"Sure," Undertaker said with a cackle, motioning to the set. Ciel looked at Sebastian's motionless features and wondered whether the other man was as thrown as he was. The trick was to keep it hidden, like his father had always told him, and Ciel was good at maintaining a bored expression in most situations. "You may –"

"We'd like to sit," Aleister interrupted sweetly. "My darlings shouldn't stand for too long or sit on the floor. The latter makes their knees bruise. And if they sit on their posteriors, their dresses will be rumpled. This is silk, my friend."

Undertaker said nothing. Instead, he laced his fingers together and tilted his head to the side, grinning eerily.

Aleister swallowed visibly.

Undertaker let this mood hang for longer than Ciel would have deemed necessary. When Aleister seemed ready to bolt, the photographer made a vague gesture with his hand. "Alright, your house, your rules. Just let me move those lights. Take a seat, sir."

The Viscount nodded and led the girls to the nearest couch. Undertaker moved the lights around, politely asking Sebastian and Ciel to step out of his way. "Your favourites, you say?" he asked as the Viscount and the songbirds sat down.

"Almost all of them," Aleister said. "There are two more but unfortunately, they're sick, the poor birds. They're the oldest ones around here."

"Out of mere curiosity: How old are they?" Sebastian asked.

Aleister was quiet for a mere second, frowning and narrowing his eyes. It could be a trick of the lights, because Undertaker had chosen that moment to switch them on again. Ciel couldn't be too sure about this, but for one second, Aleister seemed _dangerous_. "Old enough. Why would you want to know?"

The girls around him fidgeted. Ciel regarded them calmly. Did they know anything? He would remind himself to talk to them as soon as he had the chance to.

"As I said earlier, just curious." Sebastian smiled. "I think I should take my leave now and let you concentrate on the shooting." He headed for the door, saying his goodbyes to a suspiciously amused Undertaker and to Aleister's wards before leaving the room. Ciel caught on and cursed the man as he did the same and followed him out. What did Sebastian think Ciel was? First a rubbish bin and now a dog? He huffed in exasperation, catching up with the artist just in front of the door. Indeed, Sebastian had wanted him to leave, too.

"What is it?" he asked as they paced down the hallway. The artist didn't answer until they had left the villa, which didn't calm Ciel down in the least. What had Sebastian noticed that had failed to catch Ciel's attention?

"I just wanted to get out," Sebastian said. "And I'm wondering how old these other songbirds are."

"What does it matter?" Ciel asked.

"It might matter a lot," Sebastian answered. He looked down at his Faustus jacket and grimaced.

Ciel thought back to the dark look that Aleister had given Sebastian not even two minutes ago. "Is there something you aren't telling me?"

"I don't know if it's worth mentioning," Sebastian said. There was a brief, teasing smile that flickered over his lips and Ciel felt anger rise inside his chest. "Not yet. We need information on their ages. Then we need to know their gender."

"Their gender…" Ciel began and trailed off. He didn't understand how Sebastian had caught on by the mention of age alone, but he did understand what the second half meant. If those two were men and just happened to be eighteen and twenty years old, could they be …? "That's absurd," he muttered as they got into Sebastian's car.

"Is it?" Sebastian hummed in thought. "May I remind you that Aleister being his own brother's abductor was your idea?"

"We've established that he loved him too much."

"He's a possible killer. Why would he not kidnap his brother and add him to his army of beautiful people?"

"Edgar has his voice. So does Maurice."

"And yet they are both very handsome young men."

"There are limits," Ciel interrupted him sharply, not even wanting to think of the implications. He remembered the night of his birthday party and the afternoon at the elegant café where Aleister had suggested he might lose his voice. He hadn't even informed Sebastian about this when he'd recited that particular afternoon to the artist. Somehow, this bit of information had gone… lost… during his recollections. "I want to find out whether he's the one who led the cult," the boy continued. "If he is simultaneously Edgar's and Maurice's abductor, we'll find it out. But first things first."

"That would be you."

"It would be my _revenge_."

Sebastian shot him a sidelong glance. He hummed noncommittally.

For a moment, all that was heard was the soft prattling of rain against the window. Ciel stared at the drops. He hadn't noticed it was raining until now, too caught up in improbable possibilities.

* * *

_There isn't much to say except thank you for your reviews as always! I really appreciate them, even if I can't respond to them as often as I'd like to._

_Anyway, see you all in the next chapter! I think you'll like it. There will only be Sebastian and Ciel._

_Until next Wednesday!_


	25. Temptation V

**Warning:** Fluuuuuuuuuff.

**Chapter 22**

"We haven't found anything else," Lau said, one eye open to scrutinise his beverage as if it had a tendency to bite.

"Why not?" Sebastian asked politely. Ciel was sitting next to him, a mug of hot chocolate between his hands, and didn't glance at either of them, choosing to look around the café as if someone had just died.

Lau leaned back in his seat and hummed. "Because there is nothing left to find. We've even got his school records. He was a 'free spirit' from grade one, if you wanted to know that. Nothing strange about him, but he had good marks. He skipped two classes."

"I'm… not interested in that," Sebastian said flatly.

Lau shrugged. "Too bad, because I have pictures of his prom night."

Sebastian waited.

Lau laughed. "What do you want?"

"You know what we need."

The Chinese man opened his other eye and looked between him and Ciel. "But the boy's a minor."

Ciel blinked slowly. "What."

Sebastian smirked. "I'm afraid I have to pass. No dealing for today. But please tell me about that fight between Aleister and Rachel."

"We found nothing out," Lau said. "Just that it was there. It might have to do with…" He tilted his head to the side. "Well, I don't know."

"You are being very helpful," Sebastian said dryly.

"I could supply you with his school career."

"No, thank you." Sebastian watched Ciel take a sip from his beverage. The boy certainly wasn't happy about the lack of information. "You could do us a favour."

"Always, old friend." Lau smiled winningly.

"Prove that he is or isn't Edgar's and Maurice's abductor. Keep him under constant surveillance."

The man closed his eyes again. "What would he gain from kidnapping his brother and/or his brother's boyfriend?"

Sebastian grimaced. "They weren't… aren't a couple."

"Oh," Lau said in faint surprise. "But that makes them good actors. They should pursue an acting career."

"This isn't even important," Ciel cut in, his eyebrows furrowed. It had taken him long enough to interrupt the conversation, Sebastian thought. Maybe the artist had done everything right up to this point? "He simply thinks that there are older songbirds in the Viscount's house that may or may not be male."

"He lets them go as soon as they turn eighteen," Sebastian added. Since he had failed to supply Ciel with that piece of information, the boy gave him a long, hard stare.

"How old are those two?" Lau asked.

Sebastian didn't answer.

"I'll find out," Lau said before Ciel could make a scalding commentary. "As for your cultist, boy, please stay assured that we'll do our best to find him."

Ciel glared at Lau.

"He does this because of _that_ night, huh?" Lau muttered in Sebastian's direction, but he said it loudly enough for Ciel to hear. As soon as the words came out of the criminal's mouth, Ciel stiffened in his seat. "Please tell him that I was just doing my job. I never thought I'd see one of the traded… uh, goods… again."

Ciel got up and left the café quickly. Lau followed the retreating figure with his gaze. "Not good?"

"The worst apology that I've ever heard," Sebastian replied. He fished for his wallet and put a few pounds on the table. "My treat. We'll talk again."

"Take care of him!" Lau called after the artist, and Sebastian was almost sure he'd heard a smile in that voice.

The message ringtone of his mobile went off and Sebastian glanced at the display just as he caught up with a furious Ciel. It was from Aleister. This was _not_ the best timing. However, Sebastian was lucky that Aleister hadn't called. He stuffed the mobile phone back into his pocket and carefully touched Ciel's shoulder. Finally taking notice of him, Ciel screeched, "Don't touch me!"

Pedestrians turned around to stare at them and Sebastian smiled at them tightly and in a way he hoped was apologetic. He took his hand away from the boy and clasped it with the other behind his back as an afterthought. He didn't want to appear aggressive or dismissive right now.

"I thought we were past that stage."

Ciel glared at him angrily. "I don't want to work with him anymore!"

Sebastian wondered what people were thinking right now. Of all the times he could have done it, Ciel had to be a spoilt thirteen year old in the middle of London while the majority of people came home from work. "Let's discuss this in the car, Ciel."

The boy looked around and pursed his lips. His shoulders sagged a little but his stance told Sebastian that this wasn't over. As soon as they were in the car, Ciel started afresh: "Who does he think he is?"

"Oh, I don' know," Sebastian replied dryly, a small smile touching his lips, "he probably thinks he's some gangster boss."

"Is this a game to you?" Ciel asked. "Is this a game to _him_? I must say _I_ have a different opinion."

"This is a free country," Sebastian replied evenly.

The boy stared at him. Before Sebastian could blink, Ciel had unfastened his seatbelt, one hand ready to open the door. "Okay, let me out. Stop the car and let me out."

The artist sighed. "No, I won't." When they stopped in front of a traffic light, he locked the car from the inside.

"Let. Me. Out." Ciel glared at him. "I swear that if you won't let me go _right now_, there will be consequences."

On the verge of rolling his eyes, Sebastian didn't follow Ciel's order. He shouldn't tease the boy when he was agitated already. Ciel seemed to forget on whose side Sebastian was in those moments. "I take this seriously. If you are certain that this man is around, I'm going to help you find him until we can put him behind bars. Because of you, I re-established my contacts to Lau. A criminal. Please do not think that this is a fun game to me."

Ciel snarled at him, but he was refastening his seatbelt now. Without realising it, Sebastian let out a soft exhale.

"As for Lau," the artist continued, "I don't know how he perceives this… affair. But since it was me who asked for his help, I'm sure he doesn't view it as silly. He just forgets that not everybody shares his sense of humour. Besides, he apologised to you in the café."

"Don't try to fool me," Ciel retorted. "That must have been the last thing he tried to achieve."

"It wasn't," Sebastian countered. "He was saying sorry for not having done anything back then. But you cannot blame him for having done his job."

"He didn't say that."

"You need to learn how to read between the lines."

"You need to not over-interpret things."

"I must say that I know Lau better than you."

"People change in the course of a decade."

Sebastian frowned at this, thinking back to his teenage self. Ten years ago, he'd been quarrelling with Claude, he'd hated William and his father had recently destroyed his anatomy sketches of Joker. While his father wasn't around to throw his sketches into a fire, he was still in a very bad relationship with his cousins and overall the rest of his family. He still didn't feel different about it. And he certainly didn't feel different about a muse's death, just like he hadn't cared when his mother had informed him of Beast's death when he was even younger. His body had changed, but Sebastian still had kept his values and passions and thinking patterns from his teenage years. "I seem to be in a stasis," he said.

This was what calmed Ciel down considerably, judging from the way his shoulders sagged and how he turned to face him. "What did you just say?"

"I asked you whether you feel like sleeping at my place."

"You didn't say that."

The artist nodded. "If you know what I said, then I fail to see the reason in repeating my statement from earlier. Are you going to stay at my place or not?"

Ciel sighed. "Buy me some clothes first."

"Okay." Sebastian made a u-turn and searched for the nearest garage.

Ciel spluttered. "What are you doing, you idiot? That was a joke."

"It sounded like a criteria. I must admit I fully agree. You need clothes at my place apart from your school uniform. Gregory has clothes at Undertaker's, too, you know. It makes sense."

"It doesn't. Drive to your house right now! I don't want you to buy clothes for me."

"But dressing you up must be a fun pastime, I'm sure of it."

"I do not need clothes at your place!"

Sebastian suppressed a smile. "I wholeheartedly disagree."

**OOO**

Going shopping was most amusing when Ciel was sulking, Sebastian realised. Being a practical shopper usually, Sebastian discarded that trait as soon as Ciel had left the fitting room wearing his first outfit. It was too much fun to drag the boy from shop to shop and have him try on everything that Sebastian chose for him. Ciel quickly understood that the artist was happy at his expense and ruthlessly compared him to Alois. That did offend Sebastian a little, but not enough to cancel the shopping trip.

As they returned to the Michaelis estate that evening, the artist carried a load of shopping bags. Ciel apparently did not even dream of offering his help. He might as well sit on the artist's back and order him to carry the bags faster.

Seeing that Ciel didn't even feel like taking the keys and opening the door for the two of them, Sebastian had to do that, too. When he entered, the boy smirked at him dirtily. Oh, that brat was well aware of how infatuating he was.

"Are you going to cook?" he asked as Sebastian dropped the bags in the entrance hall. The head of the Michaelis family stared down at his son disapprovingly.

"Yes," the artist answered, taking his gaze off his father. "Is there anything you want?"

"Cake." Ciel grabbed two bags. He went to the stairs and just when Sebastian wanted to thank him for the help, he set the bags down again. "That was exhausting. Call me when the food is ready. I'll be in the music room."

Sebastian gaped at the boy but caught himself quickly. "I've got this new recipe for chocolate cake, but it doesn't look like you want to try it."

"_Excuse_ me?" Ciel turned around to frown at him. "What makes you think that?"

"Oh, I don't know." Sebastian picked up the remaining bags standing by his feet. "I don't see why I should bake a delicious, creamy first-class chocolate cake for some lazy brat. So I changed my mind. You're getting salad today."

"What?" Ciel scrutinised him with squinted eyes as he walked past the boy, leaving the other two bags by the stairs. "I won't eat salad."

"Go hungry, then," Sebastian replied. "I'll give that cake to your cousins. I'm sure they work harder than you do. Aren't they good at martial arts?"

"Sebastian."

"Such hard-working people. They deserve a tasty chocolate cake. You on the other hand just lazily sit around and do nothing."

There was a sound of quick footsteps and then Ciel was up the stairs and had taken the turn into the guest room that was now his own room, carrying the two bags from earlier. Sebastian chuckled. "Thank you for the help you so freely gave me."

"Shut up!" Ciel called from inside the room. "Bake that stupid cake for me."

Sebastian grinned and hurried to bring the bags to Ciel. "Everything for you, my gracious and well-meaning lord."

The boy glared at him.

Sebastian left the room smiling.

**OOO**

During dinner, Sebastian found out about Ciel's nasty cake-eating habit: Despite his impressive table manners, Ciel sometimes just liked to eat his dessert with his fingers. The artist couldn't help but gape at this because it surely wasn't happening, but here Ciel was, licking chocolate from his fingers and eyeing the cut cake on the table contemplatively.

"What does your aunt say about this?" Sebastian asked.

"She doesn't bake," Ciel answered. "I told her I'm at your place."

Sebastian blinked. "Oh?"

"There's a picture that you want to finish, so I offered to stay around."

"She allowed you to stay?"

"My uncle did. " Ciel shrugged.

The artist nodded, watching Ciel finish his piece of cake and going for the third slice. The boy himself should know when he's had too much, so Sebastian wasn't going to comment on it. He cleared the table as soon as Ciel pushed his plate aside, telling him to bake that cake again. The artist smirked as he picked up the plates, not expecting the boy to help. They had eaten together on numerous occasions by now, and Ciel had never even crooked a finger during the preparations or while setting/clearing the table. Usually, the boy was more of a hindrance, sitting on the kitchen counters and staring into the pots and watching Sebastian cook until it became slightly unnerving. It seemed to have become a new hobby of Ciel's. Sebastian didn't particularly mind, nor did he wish that Ciel ever lent him a hand while he cooked. In fact, he didn't even mind that the boy was incredibly lazy when he saw that he could help with something.

"I'm going to bed now," Ciel announced as the artist was about to leave the room with the plates.

"Sleep well," Sebastian replied.

"We'll see about that," he heard Ciel murmur before the door fell close behind him. Sebastian pursed his lips at the boy's words, but continued his way to the kitchen.

After having tidied up, Sebastian went to his atelier to work on his most recent painting. He was pleased with himself, for he had created so many works in the course of the last months that there would be more than enough pictures to choose for the exposition. Ciel had truly helped him by just being there. And the boy was still helping him. They'd known each other for half a year by now and unlike Irene, Ciel was still very fit. There were no cracks to detect that hadn't been there before Sebastian.

Yet?

For the first time, Sebastian hoped that this would last. Wanting a muse to stay with him had never been a conscious thought on his side, but Ciel definitely deserved surviving. Sebastian wasn't even trying to make Ciel dependent, he wasn't trying to make the boy feel what he felt, this fixation that spurred his insomnia, 'blessing' him with less hours of sleep and giving him more hours of work; this need to touch Ciel and mark him. The heavens knew Sebastian would love that.

Speaking of sleeplessness, it was getting late and Sebastian was already hardened against the signs of sleep deprivation – he was, after all, doing this for years - but when his body really needed its rest, it usually expressed this need in a way that always kept Sebastian from falling asleep. So when he felt the soft twinge somewhere inside of his head, the yawn growing in his chest, and the way his limbs became heavier, he washed his painting utensils and tidied everything up before going to the bathroom attached to his bedroom where he quickly changed out of his clothes and got ready for bed.

Just when he crawled under the covers, there was a knock at the door to his room. The artist didn't bother looking up as he rested his head on the fluffy pillow beneath him, but he smiled to himself. "Come in."

The door opened and Ciel entered slowly, scowling at the room's interior design as if he'd never seen it before. Maybe it looked different at night when Sebastian already was lying in bed. "Are you aware of the time?" the artist asked politely as Ciel closed the door. "It's-" He shot a glance at the digital watch by his bedside, before looking again. It was half past five. Already.

"I know what time it is," Ciel said, glowering at Sebastian. He went over to the bookshelf by the window, examining it. "I had a nightmare."

Ah. A nightmare. Sebastian regarded the boy as he dragged a small musician's finger over the spine of a book. "What do you want me to do about it?"

"You look as if you're going to bed," Ciel said to the bookshelf.

"I was about to, yes."

"I'll be going, then."

Before Ciel could reach the door, Sebastian made up his mind. He was a gentleman, of course he was, but he was feeling selfish. "You could sleep here."

Ciel stopped in the middle of his tracks and stared at him as if he'd grown a second head. "What?"

"Oh, you know, get into bed with me."

"… So you _are_ into people half your own age. My aunt has warned me, you know."

Sebastian chuckled. "Sorry to disappoint her, but I'm just offering you to sleep here. Don't act as if we haven't done that before."

"Once," Ciel said. "And that was because you were too stupid to remember how to climb out of a bed."

"Now, let's not put it that way. You seemed happy to cuddle me."

Ciel grimaced at him. Due to the only source of light being the little lamp on Sebastian's nightstand, he couldn't say whether the boy was blushing or not. "It was cold."

"Sure." Sebastian grinned. "It's cold now, too."

Ciel raised an eyebrow. "Will you shut up if I sleep here?"

"On the spot," Sebastian replied.

Ciel regarded him suspiciously while he walked over to the bed's other side. As soon as he slid under the covers, Sebastian switched off the light and immediately turned to move closer to the boy, resting an arm on his side. Ciel gave a sigh that could mean 'I saw this coming, I really did' or 'not that again', but what he said was: "This proves that you are the cuddler. I now have evidence."

Sebastian smirked to himself. Let the boy think whatever he wanted so long as he didn't turn away.

What did surprise him was that the boy lifted his upper body a little to touch his lips to Sebastian's cheek. The artist went still, frowning at this development, before he filed it away under 'very good'.

"Goodnight," Ciel grumbled and rested his head on the pillow.

"Actually, it's mo-"

"Shut up."

"You sleep well, too."

Even in the darkness, he was sure that Ciel was glaring at him. How he enjoyed spending time with this talented teen.

Falling asleep was too easy.

* * *

_So, yeah, we've got some relationship development right here! I'm glad I could let them slowly take the next step, it was about time. I'm sure you'd agree._

_Next week's chapter will hopefully creep you out a bit. This is the moment where I almost regret my month-long hiatus, because the creepiest chapter will be somewhere in act V and it would have been fitting to post it on Halloween. Oh, well, I'll just post the creepy chapter when its time comes. For now I hope you enjoyed this chapter and the fluff and the hugging. Yep._

_As always: Thank you for your kind reviews! I love all of them._

_See you next week!_


	26. Temptation VI

**Chapter 23**

"_Dinner,"_ was what Aleister said when Ciel picked up the phone. The lack of an elaborate greeting disturbed the young teen more than the leer that the Viscount's tone carried_. "At my place. This Friday. Bring your violin with you, my beautiful robin."_

"I'm sorry, but I'll be meeting up with friends," Ciel said.

"_You aren't. Sebastian is coming, too, did you know? I'm doing this… thing with my dearest artists. They're all invited to a nice dinner with me at some point. Please come and bring your violin, I need to know that you're still working."_

"Of course I am working," Ciel replied with a scoff. He'd finished many pieces since the beginning of this year.

"_Then you have nothing to regret."_

The boy blinked. "I beg your pardon?"

"… _Filet. We'll have a filet of something. I hope you aren't a vegetarian... You know what, let me inform Sebastian real quick. I want you in front of my door at eight pm. Until then, darling~"_

And the line went dead.

Ciel regarded his phone quizzically before shoving it into his pocket. Talk about a quiet evening with Sebastian. There it went, never to be seen again. It wasn't as if their time together was endless to begin with. Aunt Frances had grown suspicious of the many visits and it seemed that Ciel's explanation – 'I'm just his muse, Aunt Frances, nothing else.' – hadn't been as smooth as he'd like to think. In fact, it had made her sceptic of Sebastian. Ciel was still allowed to visit Undertaker when Alois and the photographer himself said a quick hello to her over the phone, confirming that Ciel was where he claimed to be. Gregory usually was forced to mutter a 'hi', too, if Alois didn't feel like tagging along, instead boasting about some 'quality time' with Claude.

Ciel did not want to know what those two did behind closed doors.

Seeing that Sebastian was an artist and connected to Aleister – not just a Viscount but _the_ Viscount -, Ciel was allowed to spend his Fridays with the man, and he managed to forget his miserable predicament until ten pm, when Bard picked him up with an apologetic expression on his face. Ciel had always wondered about this. Upon being asked, Bard had responded with, "Well, you're more comfortable at that dude's place. It's like picking you up from your home and bringing you to some stranger's place to sleep all the time."

Ciel hadn't known that his discomfort at the Midfords' house was that obvious. If Bard had caught on, then Tanaka must have known for a longer time.

The boy's gaze wandered over to the paintings hanging on the wall. Despite their partly threatening nature, Ciel felt at ease whenever he looked at them. Not that he would ever tell anybody, _especially_ not Sebastian, but he felt that he could at least admit it to himself.

Dinner with Aleister. Ciel could think of a million things less exhausting than that. But at least it looked like Sebastian would be coming along – he certainly would, considering the circumstances, wouldn't he? -, so Ciel wasn't going to be bored out of his skull. Hopefully, he would get a chance to speak with a songbird alone. Depending on how cooperative the girls would prove to be, he might learn more about Aleister's secrets.

Aunt Frances, who had been planning a family dinner on that Friday, was not happy about it. She frowned at him so hard that Ciel wondered whether it could squash her face. Lizzie started sniffing obnoxiously, her father staring at her in fear. Now that was someone who couldn't handle a girl crying. Ciel glanced at Edward and quickly saw that his cousin had taken after Alexis, too. Both males were trying to reassure the blond girl now, leaving the matter to Frances, who stared at them in bewilderment.

"It's the Viscount of Druitt," Ciel added unnecessarily for emphasis, wondering how fast he could escape from the silly family evening. It was something Frances insisted on weekly, but Ciel would even prefer visiting Alois at his house along with Soma. He didn't fit into the Midford family. He just didn't.

"I don't want you to go!" Lizzie cried. Her father and brother were teary-eyed by now. Ciel furrowed his eyebrows at them. What on Earth…?

Frances sighed explosively. "I do not want to be responsible for the downfall of your not-yet- existent career. You can go. There are many other Fridays on which we can go to a restaurant."

"But I wanted to go _this_ Friday!" Lizzie sniffed. "And then have a cute party the week after."

"I'm going upstairs," Ciel announced as Frances opened her mouth.

"You are not," his aunt said. "You're part of this family and we're discussing what we're going to do for Elizabeth's birthday."

"You can do that," Ciel said, "and inform me of the result. I'm going."

They let him get up and leave the room. On his way upstairs, he passed the family's portrait. They had yet to make a new picture, Frances always claimed, seeing that they had gained a new member. While Ciel accepted them as his relatives, he just didn't feel well around them: They were what Ciel had lost; caring parents and happy children. They shared the same blood, but not the same bond, and where Angelina had managed to form a connection with Ciel just by being there and trying to understand his pain (until she grew tired of his trauma, but that is a very different thing), the Midfords were trying to force a connection upon him. Surely they could see how well that worked.

Ciel was a stranger here. Edward wouldn't stop glaring at him, and while he liked Lizzie a lot, she was too annoying around him. Alexis was a kind man and Frances had a big heart, but Ciel saw his father somewhere in his Aunt and, unfortunately, didn't care for kind men.

The worst thing about being with the Midfords was this feeling of timelessness: Not much had changed. They had all grown older, but inside in their estate there was no change palpable. That was why Ciel tended to look out the window sometimes and wonder why his parents hadn't picked him up yet. It… usually took him a while to remember.

Later that evening, Frances knocked and entered the room, looking at him sternly as he lay in his bed, on top of the covers, and Ciel lowered his book in attentive silence.

"She wants to spend a day with you," Frances said.

"She can," Ciel muttered, trying to hide his annoyance. It wasn't as if he could say no. Lizzie would start crying and then Edward might really want a duel with him. "But not before the exhibition."

"I'll tell her." Frances' eyes softened. She looked around the barely decorated room. "Do you… want to go shopping for your room?"

"I don't need anything," Ciel answered. "Sebastian will probably give me another drawing or a sculpture soon."

His aunt narrowed her eyes briefly at the mention of the artist's name. Ciel knew she still wasn't happy about the fact that he had slept at Sebastian's place a few days ago, but considering that the boy hadn't returned battered and bruised, she had only lectured him about how she didn't trust 'that Michaelis'. Not that it mattered. She didn't know him. Not like Ciel did.

"Alright," she finally said. Ciel, thinking that the conversation was over, returned to his book. He couldn't hide his surprise when he felt her sit down on the edge of the bed. "What do you think," she began afresh, "of visiting the Phantomhive headquarters with me? Spending a day there, see what a CEO does."

Ciel opened his mouth and realised that he didn't know what to say. How could he tell her that maybe – _maybe_ – this wasn't where he saw his future anymore; taking up his father's business and becoming like him? With the help of The Phoenix Society, he might have the chance of becoming a well-known musician. "I'd… like to," he answered eventually, feeling that Frances would disapprove if he told her that he wasn't planning on turning his back to music anytime soon. She talked about his 'career', but she always handled it as if he would come to his senses soon enough and take up the company as soon as he was of age.

"Good." Frances actually _smiled_. "After the exhibition?"

"Why not?" Ciel replied.

She put her hand over his and squeezed gently before regaining her stern mask and getting up from the bed. The door closed behind her with a soft click and Ciel looked at the windows, wondering.

**OOO**

This had to be the most idiotic idea he'd ever agreed to. Concentrating on the music, Ciel briefly closed his eyes as the bow brushed over the strings, creating the sweetest sounds on his father's violin. If he opened his eyes, he would see Aleister right in front of him, sitting on a sofa with Sebastian to his right and two songbirds to his left. He was only here because Sebastian had ultimately agreed to come, confirming to Ciel that dinners with artists were a regular occasion throughout the whole year. And when you were invited, you better appear at Aleister's doorstep. This man could sulk for quite a while after all, and a sulking Viscount was not wanted.

"Wonderful!" Aleister cried out when Ciel finished. The songbirds clapped politely and Sebastian was smiling somewhat smugly, not moving at all.

Ciel bowed and went over to the violin case to put the instrument back. "Thank you."

"You should come here more often and play for me and the girls," Aleister said. "I'm sure they'd all enjoy it."

"How many of them live here?" Ciel asked, out of mere curiosity. He always saw different girls on Aleister's arm.

"Oh, twelve, I think," Aleister replied.

Ciel had counted at least fifteen different faces so far. Nevertheless, he faked surprise. It wasn't hard, because he actually _was_ flabbergasted. "You have taken in twelve girls?"

"Yes!" Aleister nodded fervently. "And I love them as if I gave birth to them! My pretty daughters."

The older of the two girls carefully removed the wine glass from Aleister's hand while the other stared at him quizzically. Sebastian was currently trying very hard not to laugh, and Ciel inclined his head as if he understood what Aleister was talking about.

After a monologue on Ciel's greatness and how well it went with Sebastian's talent ("I'd play the matchmaker if Ciel were older," the Viscount said and Ciel had to think back to their cuddling session less than a week ago) Aleister led them to the dining room (or hall; really, why did the room have to be so spacious?) where they took their seat around a large oak table. Ciel sat to Aleister's left while Sebastian sat to the man's right; the boy noticed early on that Sebastian was much more focussed on him than on what Aleister had to say, and while the Viscount rambled, they exchanged quite a few pointed looks. The songbirds sitting next to them were obediently eating their food, not caring about the looks of displeasure that were exchanged. Or maybe they did care and would inform Aleister of that later…

A teenaged girl carried the food in together with three others. Ciel, sitting with his back to the windows, saw the flash of white behind the door as it fell closed. The girls seemed to be wandering the halls at this time.

"You let them work for you?" Ciel asked politely as the second course was placed in front of him. He assumed that it was veal or pork, but nobody cared to inform him.

"Cooking is one of Miranda's hobbies," Aleister said, patting the girl that was about to leave on the head. The songbird stilled for three seconds before gently removing Aleister's hand to fix her hair. The Viscount laughed. "Isn't she adorable? Anyway, she enjoys helping in the kitchen, and the girls get pocket money for playing maid. You know, they are more precious to look at than my regular staff."

Sebastian looked at his food. "You want to become a cook?" he asked the girl conversationally. Ciel could almost reach out and touch the hidden intention in addressing one of the songbirds. Was Sebastian trying to warm up to Aleister by talking to his many daughters? Or was he simply trying to have the girl warm up to him?

"It depends, I guess." Aleister shrugged, and the songbird hadn't even moved to formulate a response. "But she was very adamant on helping in the kitchen today. She always is, really. One day she'll replace this house's cook."

"So the food's poisoned," Ciel drawled.

One of the girls snorted. Most of them smiled indulgently, as if they were already used to this kind of randomness. Ciel didn't doubt it for a second.

The most interesting reaction came from Aleister: He stared at his plate pensively, obviously missing the fact that Ciel had only meant to get a reaction from the girls as Sebastian's charm had not done anything to them. "They wouldn't," he finally said. "They love me and I love them." He smiled creepily at the girl called Miranda. "Why don't you go to your room? All of you… except you two." He pointed at the two girls moving to get up from their seats.

The songbirds' expressions became very blank; smiles fell off as if they hadn't been there to begin with. They all left the room with great dignity. Ciel almost sighed. He'd wanted to talk to them about the older songbirds that supposedly lived here. Maybe he could find out where their rooms were. But if there were fifteen (at least) of them, he might see another one wandering around.

He waited until the course was taken away by actual maids in fitting uniforms and Ciel noticed that this had to be the first time that he saw someone working in this house who was older than the Viscount.

"May I excuse myself?" he asked with a smile and got up. Aleister, who had now decided to have a dialogue instead of a monologue simply nodded while he discussed Sebastian's new paintings. Ciel could feel the artist's eyes on him as he rounded the table. He wasn't sure if Sebastian could deduct Ciel's intentions on his own, but the boy knew that the man had a brain; he better use it.

The hallway was deserted. Even at the far end, by the stairs, there was no one to be seen. Ciel decided to go to the next storey. Nobody there. The boy raised his gaze to the walls that were decorated with wonderful paintings. Taking them in, Ciel walked down the hallway, duly taking note of the absolute, perfect silence. He could hear himself breathe. The sounds of his footsteps were incredibly loud against the thick stillness that hung heavily in this house. Those girls that lived here were teenagers. Surely at least one of them would watch telly or listen to music in her room? Ciel knew for a fact that this was a more private storey of the house, this one and the one above. Here were the guestrooms and – if there really were twelve (fifteen) songbirds, some of their rooms had to be here, too. Ciel had hoped to catch one of them, but it seemed as if he'd have to work with those two songbirds that were downstairs with Aleister and Sebastian.

Too deeply in thought, he hadn't noticed one of the paintings until he had almost walked past it. The sheer darkness that it emitted drew Ciel back.

There was an angel with a slit but stitched throat crying tears of blood while her mouth was opened to a soundless scream of pure agony. Ciel's breath caught in his lungs, and the boy took a physical step away from the painting, blinking as if to ban the horrendous sight from his mind. It didn't go away. The angel's eyes spoke of terrors yet to be seen and her teeth were stained red. Her wings were bent at unnatural angles, bones peeking out.

There was a nameplate below the painting.

_Survivor_

_Ash Landers_

Ciel swallowed hard and automatically brought a hand to his throat. His eye was itching underneath the silken eye patch.

He found that he couldn't breathe anymore when he looked at the date in the painting's corner.

Ash had completed this three years ago.

For a very short moment, Ciel saw the flash of white in the angel's hair, the violet of her eyes, the structure of her face, and he felt sorry for the artist.

But then he decided to sneer at the fact that Aleister had bought this painting and hung it up in his _hallway_ of all places. With a scoff Ciel continued his way, only to run into something solid that knocked his body to the floor. Another thud told him that the other person had also fallen, but they were faster to get up while Ciel was still too stunned to move. He hadn't heard anything. Where had that person come from?

Since there was no exclamation or an apology, Ciel suspected that this was a songbird he'd run into. When he looked at the hand that was offered to him, it looked soft and feminine.

It held a piece of paper. What was going on here?

Ciel took the hand and was pulled to his feet. As the songbird let go, he took the paper and slid it into his pocket. "I apologise," he said, because his mother had always told him to be nice to ladies, "I should have looked where I was going."

The songbird shook her head. She was wearing a thin white hoodie and had covered her face. Ciel could only see a set of plump lips, her jawline and a few strands of golden curls that framed her face. While her hoodie wasn't very wide, but not particularly tight-fitting either, Ciel could see no hint of breasts, even though this girl was taller and – so he guessed - had to be older than him. Maybe she was flat-chested, but not that he cared for such assets anyway. Nobody knew, but women weren't high on his 'desirable' list. Not that he even wanted to _think_ about anything having to do with desire, but he was growing up and his brain liked to flood his consciousness with things that liked to cause unwanted… reactions.

The songbird shook her head, dutifully keeping her face covered. Ciel wondered who she was. Had he seen her before? She… did seem familiar somehow. She was also the first songbird to wear shorts instead of a dress. When she hurriedly pressed past him, going to a room few doors away from him, Ciel was appalled by how short this piece of clothing was. Not even Alois would wear it so short. It was also way too tight, calling everyone's attention to her backside. She pulled out a key and unlocked the door before entering swiftly. Ciel stared after her thoughtfully. He couldn't help thinking that he knew her.

His fingers curling around the piece of paper inside his pocket, Ciel felt unsure about taking it out to read the message. If the songbird was going to such lengths to slip it to him, looking at it just where he'd received it seemed like an inconsiderate thing to do.

Time to find a bathroom. Ciel knew this house, seeing that he had spent a portion of a night wandering its halls when his Aunt Anne had decided to spend the night here. He found the next bathroom quickly and slipped inside the room, locking the door. For some reason he'd never felt so strange like he had in the last half hour. He checked the corners of the bathroom with his gaze and then took the piece of paper out of his pocket. He almost laughed hysterically when he saw what was scrawled on top of the paper:

_Beware the cameras_

_And the many ears_

This was crazy. Ciel impulsively checked the room again, just to make sure of course, and opened the paper.

_I now know for a fact that he worked with your mother. Hopefully my assumptions are right, but I also know for a fact that she found out._

_She knew about us._

_Make sure that you do not show this to anyone you cannot trust._

Ciel was left with more questions than answers: Who exactly was this songbird? What was it that Ciel's mother had known? Did it… Did it have to do with the songbird, perhaps? 'Us' perhaps referred to the songbirds, seeing that a songbird had given him this note.

Taking deep breath, the boy put the note back in his pocket. What should he do now?

He slowly opened the door, scanning the hallway with his gaze. He froze when he heard the tell-tale _click_ of a lock being opened and saw the songbird from earlier leaving the room with another one leaning heavily on her shoulder. The other one was taller than her. Blond hair spilled past her shoulders, but Ciel couldn't see her face as she had her back turned towards him. They walked away from him, the shorter songbird steadying the taller one. The taller songbird lowered her head, stumbled, and then she fell over. Ciel rushed over to them. The smaller songbird had backed away and was hiding her face behind her hands, chest heaving. Was she panicking? She turned her head to face Ciel and the boy's breath got stuck in his throat.

This wasn't a songbird.

This wasn't even a girl. The fabric covering her face had slipped off, revealing a head with a mass of blond curls and a face with vibrant green eyes that stared at Ciel in shock.

"Maurice?" Ciel croaked, having a hard time at finding his voice. He looked at the songbird that was trying to get up on her(his) own. The bags under the eyes looked like bruises, the lips were chapped and dry and the hair was brittle. The legs – once strong and trained – seemed unable to carry the rest of the body. But this was Edgar. _The_ Edgar. What had become of him?

Ciel fished for his phone, but despite knowing that it was supposed to be in his pocket, his hand came back empty. Where had he put his phone? He couldn't recall having removed it from his pocket.

And then there was slow clapping.

Ciel whirled around sharply, just as Aleister came to a halt, bringing the palms of his ungloved hands together in a mockery of approval. The air smelled of blood and Ciel found he'd rather choke than smell this combination of blood and flowers again.

"You've been bad, Ciel." Aleister smiled at him serenely. He reached behind him and outstretched his arm towards Ciel, gun in hand.

"What did you do to them?" Ciel asked, feeling his heart thumping too quickly. Maurice rushed to Edgar on his hands and knees, his fingers trembling as he cupped Edgar's face in concern.

"Leave," Aleister said to them.

They left. Ciel turned around to call for them. Why were they listening to this madman?

Behind him stood Lau. A door fell close in the distance, but Ciel didn't understand how they could have fled so fast when Edgar had barely been able to walk not a minute earlier. "Nice to see you again," the criminal said, smiling widely.

Ciel was sick to his stomach. "I thought you served the Michaelis family."

"The Michaelis betrayed us by declining our services." Lau shrugged. "William Spears never considered this kind of revenge, did he now?"

"How would he?" Aleister replied, coming closer. Ciel couldn't move and didn't budge when the cold steel touched his forehead.

"Where is Sebastian?" the boy asked slowly.

"Hell." Aleister cocked his head to the side, still smiling his take-a-picture smile. "Together with your parents."

"You killed them," Ciel stated.

"I _had_ them killed." Aleister looked past him at where Lau was standing. "There is a difference."

"You will pay for this!" Ciel yelled, feeling that despite his promise, he would never be able to fulfil it. There went his revenge. He would never be able to avenge the abuse inflicted upon him.

He would never see Sebastian again. It was strange how his eyes burned at that thought, and Ciel had to blink rapidly to get rid of it.

"Not today," Aleister said silkily.

Everything went black.

* * *

_Happy Halloween! :D _

_*hides behind a wall*_


	27. Temptation VII

**A/N:** Early update because I thought I might start updating either every Tuesday or every Wednesday. Depends on when I've got more time, really. Anyway, I trolled you in the last chapter. Nobody was dead or captured or betrayed in the last installment.

BUT **we reached over 200 reviews**, so I'm totally going to make up for my troll with some romance Ciel-style. It had to happen.

Beta credits go to the wonderful Carrie2sky.

Enjoy! :D

**Chapter 24**

Ciel opened his eyes to his own wheezing, sitting on the tiles of Aleister's spacious bathroom. Pressing a hand against his ribcage, he tried to stay calm as he fumbled for the emergency inhaler in his pockets. He hadn't needed an inhaler in two years but it seemed as if keeping one with him as a habit had proved to be useful. After a long drag, he leaned against the door, hands trembling and thoughts flying through his head as the constricting feeling in his chest vanished.

It had been nothing but a daydream. His mobile phone and the songbird's note were still in his pockets, just like he'd expected. Ciel sighed, a long, ragged sound, and gathered his strength before he pushed himself off the door. The songbird had claimed that there were cameras. He wouldn't trust her as far as he could throw her -

… Him?

Ciel frowned. It had to have been his overly active imagination. Aleister wouldn't kidnap his brother and Maurice, would he?

And Lau wasn't working for Aleister. Ciel didn't want to imagine how things would turn out if he did.

But then again, he couldn't trust a daydream. It was just a fragment of his over-active imagination. Of course it was.

Taking a very deep breath, Ciel reached for the doorknob. The note inside his pockets was hand-written. It sounded like a good start to him.

The hallway was empty. Relief washing through him, Ciel exited the bathroom carefully, trying to spot any cameras that he'd been warned of. To his luck or inconvenience, he couldn't find anything. But just because he couldn't see any cameras didn't mean they weren't there. And why would a songbird warn him of cameras and then disappear as if it was a prank? It didn't make sense. Ciel trusted the girl (girl?) about as far as he could throw her, but he let this slide as a friendly hint. She knew something about his mother. Ciel intended to find her and learn what Rachel Phantomhive had known that had gotten her killed.

Now… to the problem of her gender. Except for the flat chest and the shorts instead of the dresses that the other songbirds always wore, there was nothing else that could prove that the songbird was a boy. And Ciel felt that it was rude to mistake a boy for a girl simply because she lacked an overtly large bosom. Soma had done it once, last year, and the girl had slapped him. Hard. Ciel was above being hit, and he wished to keep it that way.

Before he took the stairs, he looked back to the room into which the songbird had disappeared. Was she still inside? What if Ciel knocked?

Another girl arrived then, skipping down the hallway. She came to a halt in front of that room, and knocked in a certain rhythm at the door. She hadn't seen Ciel yet, so the boy pressed himself against the wall, peeking around the corner.

There was pause in which the girl jumped from one foot to the other, impatient or simply in a very good mood. She was young. Five or six, maybe. Ciel listened closely as two knocks followed from behind the door. The girl nodded to herself and skipped away. She hopped past Ciel, who didn't dare move as she stopped in front of the next door, repeating the action from before. This time there was only one knock after a short while.

Ciel frowned and looked at his wrist watch. It was ten pm. Was this some kind of surveillance? Did that child check if the rooms were occupied? As the girl went to the next room, Ciel slipped away carefully. If there was a camera, the chance that it had caught him was high.

Back in the lower storey, one of the two songbirds accompanying Aleister for the night waited at the foot of the stairs. When she heard him approach, she turned to look at him for a long moment before letting out a rush of air through her mouth. She wasn't wearing the neutral expression from earlier - the look that most of the songbirds seemed to wear when they gathered around Aleister -, she seemed sad now.

"Uh," Ciel said, internally cringing at his own choice of a beginning, "I preferred the upper bathroom."

She nodded, her expression never changing. It was the look that people had when somebody else had the worst day of their life and they were there to listen to the whole story. She pitied Ciel. _Him_. When he should be the one pitying her obvious lack of freedom: Cameras, check-ups, uniforms to match Aleister's outfits,… They were like jewellery.

When the songbird finally broke the eye contact, she led Ciel to a saloon. Sebastian, the Viscount and the second songbird were there, and while the girl was sitting by the window, idly sipping watered down red wine and looking pretty, the men were discussing this house, it seemed.

Ciel had no words to describe how glad he was that Sebastian was still alive. That daydream had seriously disturbed him.

"Ciel," Aleister called when the boy went over to them, deciding to sit on Sebastian's lap, needing the presence of the other man's body, "took you long enough." His smile was not the most real that Ciel had seen on him.

"I had an asthma attack," Ciel mumbled. "And I accidentally ran into one of your… daughters." There was no need to lie about that. It would be on a surveillance camera later, anyway.

"An attack?" Sebastian asked lowly while Aleister asked, "Which one?"

Ciel described the songbird to him, acutely aware of how Aleister's expression turned darker with every word that Ciel said.

"Well, I hope she hasn't caused you any harm," Aleister said finally.

"She hasn't." Ciel sighed. "Although I feel a little bit fuzzy right now."

Sebastian caught on quickly. "Sounds like it's time for us to go," he said. He smiled at the two girls by the window and waited for Ciel to get up from his lap. The boy did this with a hint of regret. Not that he would ever state it or anything.

"What? Oh no. Stay, please." Aleister smiled at them, resting his chin on one gloved hand.

"I'm afraid there's not a chance," Sebastian said, getting up himself. "His aunt put up a curfew."

"Did she now?" Aleister blinked. "Well, Angelina wouldn't have done it."

"She was less strict about that, yes." Ciel gritted his teeth. Conversations about Aunt Anne weren't high on his 'like' list. "But I need to be back by half past. Thank you for your hospitality."

"Thank you for the nice concert and the visit." Aleister led them to the door, hands clasped behind his back, and Ciel idly wondered if there was a handgun somewhere on the man's body.

He didn't speak until they passed the gates to the Viscount's grounds. As Sebastian took the route to the Midfords' house, Ciel looked back again at the high hedges framing the large spot of land. It suddenly looked like the entrance to his nightmares. "I never want to go there again," he said softly, but honestly. Right now he couldn't care less about Sebastian seeing him in this state, but he had been honestly frightened, just like back then when evil men had wrenched him away from his parents, talking about an auction and how their boss would love this trophy. Said boss died at the hands of the cultist that had made Ciel's life a living hell for one month.

"Well, the exhibition will take place there," Sebastian answered levelly.

Ciel briefly closed his eyes. He was torn between having a minor breakdown and laughing. Sebastian was honestly rubbish at consoling people.

"Tell me what happened?" the artist muttered.

"How trust-worthy is Lau?" Ciel asked.

"… Pardon?"

"How far do you think his trust goes? What if somebody hired him to work against you? I know you aren't paying him for his services, so what if he jumps for the next best offer? Your cousin rejected his gang."

"He wouldn't do that." Sebastian's expression was unreadable. "Besides, he declined my offer to pay him. William's actions have no consequences for Lau's loyalty to _me_. Even if it doesn't seem that way, he's a loyal soul once someone has earned it."

"And you earned it?"

"Several times." There was a short pause. "Look, why are we having this conversation? I was asking you if you are okay."

"I appreciate your concern, but because of unsettling possibilities my wellbeing comes in last." Ciel started tapping a foot. Where they far enough yet? "What if Maurice and Edgar really were at Aleister's house?"

"What did you see?" Sebastian asked.

Ciel shook his head. "Nothing that would count as a valid argument. Look, there was a songbird wearing shorts and hiding her face. Older than me, but if it weren't for that little piece of androgynous face that I saw, I would have said she's a scrawny boy. But she – he had blond curly hair." Should he tell Sebastian about that note? It suddenly seemed like a bad idea for reasons unknown to Ciel. He knew he could trust Sebastian. "Aleister has cameras in his house."

"That's not unusual," Sebastian replied. "He has a big house and isn't exactly unknown to the public."

"I don't think he's trying to detect intruders," Ciel murmured.

"The songbirds?" Sebastian asked.

"Yes, the songbirds. I think he's surveying them and those with whom they have contact."

"Who said that?"

Ciel blinked at him. After a very, very deep breath he said, "Are you going to continue being sceptic? Because this is not the time for that game."

"I'm asking valid questions," Sebastian answered. "We need to look at things a little bit more critically than you currently are. What makes you think that Aleister has Maurice and Edgar? Your opinion on this isn't the most consistent. How can you be sure that Aleister is surveying his songbirds? It wouldn't be the best idea not to install cameras in a house as large as his. Also, you don't trust Lau. I'm not asking you to do it, but as long as he hasn't done anything that would break the deal we have, then we can't run around screaming in panic when he's the one helping us."

"That songbird gave me a letter," Ciel said, voice shaking. He hadn't meant to lose his temper but this was just getting to him. Taking the note from his pocket he tossed it at Sebastian. It fell from his face into his lap. Ciel was having a headache. "She or he made a connection between Aleister and my mother, claiming that my mother knew something that she might shouldn't have. She knew something about the songbirds and it cost her life. Then I see a girl doing check-ups at every bedroom door and Aleister sends another girl out to wait for me as if I'm some kind of convict." Ciel pressed his fingertips into his temples. So far Sebastian had been eerily quiet, the note still lying in his lap as he focussed on the road in front of him.

"Stop the car."

This time the artist stopped the car at the next opportunity and pulled out the key. They were still on a road outside the city, half on their way back to the Midfords. Ciel immediately got out of the car, hand trembling, legs shaking, and when he heard the other door opening and closing again, he waited until the footsteps came closer and then whirled around to grab fistfuls of Sebastian's shirt underneath the open jacket. "Uhm," Sebastian said uselessly. Moments later Ciel felt two strong arms around him, certain now.

"Does Lau have hackers in his team?" Ciel asked. Even though he was always close to Sebastian, he felt that the man's scent never ceased to be intoxicating, especially not when he was pressed up against the artist.

"You want them to take over Aleister's security system?" Sebastian asked, immediately guessing the boy's intentions.

"Temporarily." Ciel nodded against Sebastian's chest. "Preferably at the exhibition when the two of us are present."

"I'll talk to Lau about it," Sebastian answered. "Let us also pass by at Maurice's place… or see if we can get a sample of his handwriting from somewhere else."

"That would be good."

They stayed like this in the cold night, warming each other.

Until, of course, Ciel realised that he was cuddling Sebastian and let go, blushing. "This did not happen."

The artist may not see his face, but Ciel knew his body's movements had spoken enough for Sebastian to understand what was going on. "Embarrassed?"

"No. Just keeping my dignity."

There was a pause from above him. Then his chin was tilted upwards and something very soft and slightly cool touched his lips. When Ciel understood what was going on, he scrambled backwards, stumbled and fell on his behind, his face feeling too hot to be healthy.

"You're doing an awful job at being dignified," Sebastian laughed from where he was still standing.

"You just kissed me!" Ciel cried out, sounding as if he'd actually said 'You just flushed my hamster down the toilet!'

This caused Sebastian to laugh harder. "So what? I felt like it."

As he went around the car, leaving the boy to sit on the cold ground, the wheels in Ciel's brains started turning. "What?" He had felt like it?

His face wouldn't cool down for a while.

"Are you content sitting on the ground?" Sebastian called from the car as he switched on the lights. "I think I'm going to make a phone call before we move on."

"Move on with what?" Ciel asked.

"Driving you home, of course." Sebastian waved him closer before a grin spread over his face. "Why? Did you have other ideas?"

"We are _not_ having this discussion!" Ciel snapped immediately. He got up from the ground as dignified as he could, ignoring the tingling feeling in his lips as he went over to the car. When he climbed in the vehicle, sat down and closed the door, he realised that there was a lack of tension inside his chest.

Oh. So that was why Sebastian had kissed him. Ciel almost smiled to himself, wondering if Sebastian had calmed him down because he cared. From what he'd heard about the artist, there was no certain answer to that question.

Meanwhile, Sebastian took a look at the songbird's note, pursing his lips as he read. "Doesn't this make Aleister my parents' certain killer?" Ciel asked.

"Because Rachel knew something he didn't want her to?" Sebastian asked. "We now have proof that he has a motive. That's all. Whether he did it or not is still in the dark."

"It's a strong reason to kill someone," Ciel pointed out.

Sebastian hummed in affirmation. "And as I once said, people have killed for less." He shot Ciel a sidelong glance before taking out his mobile. "I'm going to call Claude."

_You have his number?_ Ciel wanted to ask. "Why?" he wanted to know instead.

"Because Claude _knows_ his best models. He can tell you any detail about Maurice and Edgar that not even their families were aware of. If he agrees we'll show him the note."

"No." Ciel shook his head. "I do not want him to see that. What… What about Undertaker? He's perceptive."

"He is," Sebastian agreed, "but when it comes to Maurice he hasn't seen much of him. While Edgar took Maurice everywhere with him, Undertaker's house was an exception. So he doesn't know Maurice well, not to mention he has no idea what his handwriting might look like." The artist's thumb paused over his mobile's display. "If you don't want me to tell him, I won't."

Ciel understood that Sebastian also didn't want to ask a favour from his cousin. It had to mean a lot that talking to Claude was Sebastian's first option: It was the only one to which they had fast access, and the designer owed Ciel for supplying his dancer's collection with a tune. "Is he trustworthy?" Ciel asked.

"Not at all," Sebastian answered, and Ciel's heart sank. "At least not usually. But I think that he might reconsider since this has to do with one of his best models. He has kept his mouth shut about the abduction so far, he will definitely keep it shut until he knows for sure that Maurice and Edgar are either dead or right in front of his eyes, ready to return to work. Us showing him this note will force him to lock his mouth shut if he doesn't want the trouble that could follow."

Ciel nodded, trying to keep the tightness from returning to his chest. "Okay. Call him."

Sebastian pressed the 'call' button and put on the speaker.

Ciel hoped that this was a good idea.

Claude answered after the second ring. _"You are aware of the time, are you not?"_

"Almost eleven pm," Sebastian answered. There were no warm hellos. Not that Ciel had expected any. "This is important."

"_I figured."_

"I want us to meet."

"_I'm a very busy man."_

"Surely you can clear your schedule."

"_I cannot." _If Claude were anybody else, Ciel thought that they'd be screaming instead of trying to keep it in. It sounded exhausting, having to contain one's anger this strictly_. "Was that all?"_

Sebastian and Ciel exchanged a glance before the artist sighed. "Look, it's about Maurice's whereabouts."

The dismissive tone in Claude's voice changed into pure ice_. "If this is a joke, I will have your head for it."_

"That would have very bad repercussions," Sebastian replied lightly. Ciel who wondered if Sebastian might be referring to Lau and his people avenging him, cringed inwardly. "I speak the truth. Where are you?"

"_Spain."_

"You're incredibly precise."

"_I'm not coming back until Tuesday."_

"Make sure you're free on Tuesday, then. We'll meet. You have to verify something for me."

"_I do not help you without getting something in return."_

Sebastian frowned at his phone. "We'll see about that."

"_My place,"_ Claude said and hung up.

After a moment Sebastian put his phone back and turned to smile at Ciel.

"That went well."

The boy nodded and was struck by a sudden idea when he saw how Sebastian's body was still tense despite the artist trying to hide it. It was written in the way Sebastian's jaw was set and how he looked at the dark street ahead of them.

And maybe it wasn't only because Ciel was trying to do Sebastian a favour. Maybe he was just a tad selfish when he leaned forward, fisted Sebastian's jacket and pulled him closer. The artist was really smiling when their lips touched this time, but when Ciel wanted to draw back it was him being pulled towards the older man, and he found he didn't even mind when Sebastian deepened the kiss, almost hesitantly ('_Are you okay with this?_') and Ciel smirked as he answered carefully ('_Only when you are'_). He had no idea what he was doing here but it felt right and Sebastian had yet to break away and laugh at him, so everything seemed all right so far. They weren't in the best position to kiss, but Ciel was too busy _experiencing_ to adjust. It was wonderful, exhilarating; it was-

Sebastian stilled against his lips and drew back. Ciel blinked in confusion as the artist fastened his seatbelt and started the engine. The lights went out above them, and Ciel, still feeling the press of Sebastian's lips against his, slowly sat back as the car started moving again.

"This is wrong," Sebastian said. "You're half my age."

"So?" Ciel murmured, trying to get his brain to work again.

"_So_?" Sebastian repeated. "I could go to _jail_ for that."

"Then just don't run on the streets and tell everyone."

The artist fell eerily quiet.

Ciel frowned at him even though Sebastian couldn't see it. "Don't tell me you haven't thought about shutting up about it."

"Excuse me for being a person with morals."

The boy laughed. Now _there_ was something funny. He hadn't realised how much he had needed it until now. "You're friends with a criminal! You're having him work for you."

Sebastian probably shot him a look, Ciel wasn't sure. "So that's a yes?"

"What's a yes?" Ciel asked.

"Just making sure that I can kiss you anytime I want."

The boy snorted, internally skipping in circles and trying to reach the sky. For a sweet moment Aleister, the songbirds and the note were forgotten. Then he remembered that he really shouldn't behave like this – not even internally – and quickly caught himself. He'd be damned if he showed how satisfied he was with this answer.

"If you haven't realised it by now, there is nothing I can do for your IQ," Ciel said haughtily.

"A yes, then."

Ciel didn't answer… but it wasn't needed, anyway.

* * *

_Hm. Sooner or later, it had to happen. I hope Ciel didn't become OOC or anything. But yeah, this is still a Sebastian/Ciel, even though it is also a mystery fic. I hoped you liked the SebaCiel. Next chapter coming either Tuesday or Wednesday next week! Until then._


	28. Temptation VIII

**Chapter 25**

It only took Claude one look to confirm that Maurice had indeed written the note. "What is the meaning of this?" he asked then and actually _read_ the note, turning to his side as Sebastian tried to snatch it away.

The artist felt a headache coming on, much like somebody kicking in the doors to his house. Claude was a walking cause for migraines. "Just give it back, Claude. It's not like you can do anything."

Standing by the couch of his posh living-room (Sebastian had yet to be asked to take a seat, but he wasn't going to wait for it), Claude turned back to him. "Oh, and you _can_?" he sneered.

Sebastian remained quiet. The criminals aiding the Michaelis family were not known to anyone but the family head and the heir. It was just the former head's bad luck that had caused another to learn about the secret. Even if Claude had been William, thus knowing about Lau, Sebastian wouldn't have mentioned the criminal: William might find a way to stop Lau, even if the man could help them like no one else currently could.

"I can take it to the police. They can search the house."

"Whose house?" Claude asked.

"William's," Sebastian answered immediately, going for the note again.

Claude let him take it, giving him a blank stare. Of course he wasn't buying it.

Sebastian huffed, definitely feeling as if _he_ was the younger cousin. "Look, it's none of your business."

"This person that you refuse to mention has taken what is _mine_. I want them both back and you will tell me where you suspect them to be."

"I appreciate your cooperation," Sebastian muttered darkly, turning to leave the house.

Claude never had been one to just _not_ have things go his way. Of course he followed his older cousin. "You will not leave my grounds until I have a name. And what is it that whose mother knew? This is about your muse, isn't it?"

"Claude, don't," Sebastian said.

"Are you investigating the murder of his parents?" Claude raised an eyebrow. "You can do that. Just tell me where Edgar and Maurice are."

"Might be," Sebastian replied.

"Tell me. I'll call the police and give them a hint."

"…. Aleister Chambers."

Claude looked him over. "Thank you. I'll call them immediately."

Sebastian wondered briefly about the lack of reaction to the name, and his gaze flickered down to the gloved hand taking the house phone from its loading station. "Bastard," Claude murmured, and that was just about as emotional as he could get. The designer delivered the hint and told them that the note would be brought to the next station, and then Sebastian returned it to him with an accented roll of his eyes before he left, hoping that he was doing the right thing.

**OOO**

Lau came to see him only two days later.

"Chamber's house has been searched," he said, his information coming from places Sebastian didn't want to know about.

"And?" the artist asked, putting on his coat. Since Frances Midford was about as suspicious of him –if not more – as Angelina, Ciel had to be more or less surveyed by Undertaker who was happy to let Sebastian into his house and then walk away with Gregory to work, leaving the two of them alone.

"They found six girls," Lau said, "all between the ages five and fifteen."

Sebastian stilled. "But he told us he had twelve. And I'm sure there had been one that was older than fifteen during our last visit."

"And he has a perfect alibi for the days in which Maurice and Edgar had disappeared. When Edgar was abducted, Chambers was in Paris. During the questioning, he cried snot and tears as soon as his brother was mentioned."

"Wait, how do you know that?" Sebastian asked.

Lau held up his hands, wiggling his fingers. "Magic."

"… Did you meet Undertaker?"

Lau blinked in response.

That was a no.

Sebastian combed his fingers through his hair. "What do you suggest?"

"I suggest we stick with the plan from before: Hack into Chamber's security system and try to prevent anything that might come from Ciel getting them out of their rooms. We might cause a power blackout. And maybe we will-"

"That's sufficient, Lau." Sebastian couldn't help the small smile despite the bad situation they were in. The last thing he wanted to do was get Ciel to flee with the two models. "Just make sure no one will be able to trace you back. Even though you're constantly violating the law it should not be my family's doing if you go to jail."

The Chinese man laughed at that. "You're just saying that."

Sebastian snorted softly. "I'm not." He put a hand on the man's shoulder. "If there isn't anything else, I'm heading out, so..."

"I wonder if he sold the girls," Lau said.

Sebastian pursed his lips. "At auctions, you mean?" Like Ciel had been sold and pursued? Now that Sebastian was aware of Aleister's visits to the underground, he wouldn't put it past the man, especially not now when they could be almost certain that he was holding at least Maurice captive.

Lau nodded.

"Look into it. See if you can find anything."

The Chinese man sighed. "So much work to do for you, Michaelis! My father already commented on that when he worked for your father. All I want to do is sell drugs and hoard money and watch over my gang."

Sebastian grinned. "Then get the job done quickly."

"Sure," Lau answered. "We'll see what can be done." As they left the manor, he spoke up again: "Do you believe he was the cultist?"

Sebastian thought about that. "I believe he's his brother's abductor and involved in the death of the Phantomhives. Since Ciel was close by when the vendor had died, and since the other men who were involved in the kidnapping are dead too, we can assume that he is the only cultist left."

"Do you see the error in logic?" Lau asked pleasantly.

Sebastian stopped short. His acquaintance took a few more steps before turning around.

"The boy is looking for the last cultist, but he is also looking for the person behind the murder of his parents. He was brought to the cultist through an auction. Anyone could have gotten him that night."

"It could have been an elaborate plan," Sebastian countered. "All the people involved in the kidnapping as well as the cultists themselves are dead except for one. How can we tell for sure that we're looking for more than one person?"

Lau didn't smile anymore. "How can we not?"

**OOO**

"Hello to you, too," Undertaker croaked when Sebastian brushed past him into the house, looking around for Ciel. Alois was watching telly with Gregory in the living-room, and when Sebastian spotted Ciel in the kitchen, he told the photographer to stay out for a while.

"If you do anything nasty in there, I will mutilate you corpse whether you want it or not," Undertaker said with a grin.

"My corpse can't exactly say no," Sebastian replied, at which Undertaker laughed loudly. The artist used the opportunity to slip into the kitchen and close the door behind him.

Ciel, still dressed in his school uniform, was leaning against the counter with a freshly brewed cup of tea to warm his hands. When Sebastian closed the door, he looked at the older man expectantly. Sebastian went over to him, placed his hands on the counter on either of Ciel's sides and leaned in, giving Ciel a quick kiss.

Despite the fact that he hated himself for it – why was it that he couldn't have waited until the boy was older? -, this had become routine in the past week. What had started as a way to calm Ciel down had become something that the boy didn't even blush at anymore. Sebastian had quite enjoyed those blushes.

"You're really taking liberties here," Ciel said as a greeting, just as Sebastian straightened again.

"You're not complaining."

_Now_ the boy blushed. He raised his chin and turned his head to the side. Sebastian smiled. But then he cleared his throat. "So," he started, and Ciel was looking at him again, "the plan with the police didn't turn out well."

"I _told_ you not to let Claude do this," Ciel answered immediately. "Now Aleister is onto us."

"He is," Sebastian replied solemnly. "The exhibition is next week, though. If we stay out of his hair for that long, we can get to Maurice and Edgar."

"He might just take us out of the program."

"Wouldn't that just confirm that he is suspicious?" Sebastian countered, a slow smile spreading over his lips.

Ciel seemed to think about that for a moment before he nodded grudgingly. The boy always seemed annoyed when his answers were wrong.

After Sebastian had quickly filled him in on Lau's visit (for some reason, Ciel reacted badly to the mention of Lau's name lately; Sebastian wondered if it had to do with the night at Aleister's), the boy fell silent, mulling the artist's words over.

"I cannot say for sure that the cultist alone was behind this," Ciel said, "but it is unlikely that he had an ally. His people, they talked about my parents in his name. He must have told them how angry he was about my mother and father. It…" Ciel stopped, swallowed. His skin had gone sickly pale. "He caught me to prove a point, to make up for something they did – or something they knew, or something they wanted to do -, but I was never told what it was that had happened."

"You're saying it was one person in the end," Sebastian said.

"If it wasn't, then why did he shoot his own people?"

"He shot them?" Sebastian raised an eyebrow.

"When the police found the hideout, they had only found bodies." Ciel shuddered. "All of them except for the leader died from a shot to their heads.

Sebastian pulled the boy into his arms. "You escaped, though."

"I did," Ciel said.

"If it really is Aleister, I'm going to skin him alive."

"I'd prefer you didn't go to jail for that."

Sebastian shrugged. "Or I just won't skin him. Whatever you say. I could castra-"

"Shut up, you brute," Ciel said, but he was smiling a little bit.

Sebastian brushed a hand over the musician's hair, and then let his fingers trail over the sliver of bare skin between the tips of his hair and the collar of his shirt. "As soon as we got Edgar and Maurice out of there, they will surely testify."

"Well, that will only get him punished for abducting his brother. Even Maurice was speculating when he wrote that note."

Sebastian pressed his lips together, silently wondering. Were they really following the cultist's trail?

**OOO**

At the night before the grand event, Ciel had permission to sleep at Sebastian's house. The boy had seemed pretty nervous about the following day. Not that he explicitly expressed it, but the way his fingers trembled, and the way he would play ill-sounding notes on his father's violin said everything. If Ciel wasn't able to concentrate on his music anymore, something was very wrong.

Sebastian didn't say anything when Ciel crawled into his bed that night while he was still trying to fall asleep: He let the boy slide under the covers, watching him from the corner of his eye as he pretended to read a book. When Ciel turned his back to him, Sebastian closed the book.

"Nervous?"

Ciel didn't answer.

Sebastian wondered if he should pat him reassuringly. Maybe not… "It's going to be alright. Lau will organise a power blackout."

"That isn't going to cheer me up."

"Well, the exhibition is in the evening, so you are in no danger of being seen." He thought about it. "If you want me to, I can call Lau and tell him that one of his people should do it…"

"Aleister knows them," Ciel cut in. "Don't you think he'll be instantly suspicious if he happens to see them?"

Sebastian blinked. "Oh."

"Yes. Oh."

"Well, you still don't have to do it. I can."

"No, just…" Ciel turned around to face him. "Leave it to me. I want to see with my own eyes if I'm right or not."

Sebastian looked at him. "I believe you're right."

Ciel nodded seriously. "Thank you."

The artist couldn't help the grin that came onto his lips. "Well, now that that's settled…" He put the book on the nightstand and pressed a kiss to Ciel's cheek before he switched off the light. "I'm going to sleep."

"You're still an insomniac," Ciel reminded him dryly.

"I happen to sleep very well when we share a bed, thank you very much," Sebastian replied. Not that he would sleep should Ciel decide to be difficult.

The boy huffed but moved closer to Sebastian_. Who's the cuddler now?_ Sebastian wanted to ask, but he knew better to leave that unmentioned. Instead he let Ciel rest his head on his chest and when nothing followed for several minutes, he closed his eyes.

Ciel chose exactly that moment to speak, and he did not sound pleased.

"You know, that can actually be insulting."

"Hm?" Sebastian looked at him in the darkness.

"I can put an insomniac to sleep. I must the most boring person on this planet."

This startled a laugh out of Sebastian. "You can say that."

"Hey."

"What? Did you expect me to tell you otherwise?"

"You know, if you continue, you can totally forget eight hours of sleep. I'm moving out of this room again."

"Never knew you moved in."

He could practically hear the blush.

"Why am I putting up with you?" Ciel muttered, probably rolling his eyes while he was at it.

"Because I am irresistible."

"You tell yourself that."

"You wound me."

"_Goodnight_, Sebastian. Kindly cease your blabbering."

The artist only laughed and shook his head. There was something inside his chest that wished moments like this would never end.


	29. Temptation IX

**Warnings:** The exhibition. 'nuff said.

**A/N:** There were some reviewers who stated that they were having a bad feeling about the exhibition or the following chapters. Let me just say that they were right. Sorry.

Also, on a lighter note, let's not forget to check out Alex Beoulve's where she has a new Crescendo drawing! It's awesome! :D

So far, so good. Also, let me mention up here that the **next Interlude will be up on Saturday.** That would be all. Enjoy?

**Chapter 26**

Ciel hated being on Aleister's grounds.

What Ciel hated even more was being on Aleister's grounds with a selected bunch of people who laughed too loudly, talked too much, and smelled like an herb garden and five different kinds of cologne at once. Champagne was flowing in litres, the ball room was full, and everywhere were works of Aleister's favourite artists; at least all over the first and second floors. There would be an auction later, as far as Ciel was informed, and judging by the amount of people that lurked around Sebastian's paintings, chances were high that Sebastian would leave this mansions relieved of several works.

But if there was anything he hated more than being on Aleister's ground with so many people around him, having Alois forced upon him in exactly this location promised to take the cake.

Claude had run off to some other place, Ciel wasn't sure where, but he also didn't care too much about _Claude_ of all people. All he wanted was to have his peace for the next five minutes – preferably with Sebastian around – before he would have to play until his fingers hurt. Right now, there was a pianist providing background music. She sounded promising, Ciel thought, and if she was a member of the Phoenix Society, he wasn't sure why he hadn't met her yet. She was almost as much of a musical genius as he was.

But only _almost_.

"Ciel," Alois whined right into his ear, "let's go to the buffet."

"Why don't you go there alone?" Ciel bit out between clenched teeth. The headache of the year was descending upon him. He didn't understand how Claude endured this kid.

Not that Sebastian, standing barely a foot away from him, seemed inclined to help Ciel out anytime soon. Of course not. But he would definitely use Ciel as his heater (the boy liked to ignore the fact that Sebastian was his human heater).

Somewhere around here was Cheslock. Ciel had seen a few of his works, so the artist himself also had to be there.

And then there was Ash. Despite the fact that he and Aleister seemed to be on horrible terms, the sculptor pranced around, charmed every woman in his reach and impressed every man and regarded Aleister's songbirds as if they were dogs of a special breed. If he liked one, he would simply spend the next half an hour with her on his arm. Ciel had seen Aleister watching them, lips pinched into a tight line the moment he had laid his eyes on Ash conversing with one of his 'daughters' in sign language.

The boy suspected that their dispute had turned into a silent war by now. Whatever was their problem, anyway?

"Ciel," Alois whined, "I'm hungry. I haven't eaten all day. Let's go to the buffet."

"Silly kid," Sebastian murmured to Ciel's left.

Ciel regarded Alois with forced calm. "Be assured that I'll still be here when you return. I'm not going to run away."

"I'm not expecting you to," Alois chirped. But he didn't budge.

If Ciel had a gun, he'd have used it on himself by now.

Sebastian fished his ringing mobile phone out of his pocket and excused himself, leaving Ciel to deal with Alois. The boy immediately missed the artist's presence, the only thing that had kept him calm enough so far, and he peeled Alois' fingers from his arm, trying to be gentle, before he too excused himself and went to fetch his father's old violin.

Sebastian had to be talking to Lau at the moment. The sun had set long ago, and the room was reflected in the large windows: People standing in small groups, talking to each other, pointing at several works from time to time. Ciel could make out Aleister's snow white suit as the man almost danced through the mass of people, ever the attentive host, and sometimes he vanished from the ballroom to tend to the other guests that were in every other room of the two storeys available to them.

Soon Ciel would have to sneak past those people during the blackout. He didn't exactly know where to go, so he'd have to be close to the stairs that would lead him to the third storey. They'd had it all planned, and it sounded fairly easy: The blackout would occur, Lau's hackers would find a way to properly distract the people, and Ciel would just slip past them, get in that mysterious room and see if Edgar and/or Maurice were there. So far, he hadn't seen any of the songbirds walking around with a covered face or wearing shorts, but then again, having your incredibly famous captives attend your party didn't sound like something Aleister would want to do.

Sighing, he came up to the podium and smiled at the pianist – it was expected that all the artists knew each other, so Ciel just went with that – who gathered her sheet music while he tuned his violin and then took out music that looked suspiciously like the piano part of the first duet he'd wrote for this evening. So Aleister had provided the girl with the music. Good to know, Ciel thought dryly. The girl was now giving him a slightly more critical look and he barely refrained from sneering at her.

A butler announced Ciel who redirected his frozen smile at all the eyes that were glued to him. Just when he saw Sebastian re-entering the room, he started playing. The artist winked at him and before Ciel could screw up his playing, he looked away. It was insane how they had met right here just like this almost seven months ago. And now, they were snogging. Ciel couldn't even say that they were dating, but Sebastian had promised to take him out for dinner, to the cinema, just somewhere, after the exhibition. So… maybe they were dating. Kind of. He didn't really know.

Whatever. It wasn't as if their relationship had been easy to pinpoint throughout the last six months, so why should it now? Sebastian obviously had a problem with the age difference, Ciel still had problems with physicality, both of them weren't very emotional, and they were currently focussed on their private investigation. So… so far they were friends who snogged each other once in a while. It sounded off, but appropriate, and Ciel found himself nodding at that definition. He'd call it that. It sounded safe.

At the back of the room was William Michaelis, pulling at his white gloves while Grell daintily sipped champagne. Had Sebastian and his cousin already spotted each other? William must be looking straight at him, for he didn't even twitch when Grell patted his shoulder, and then shook his arm, trying very hard to get the man's attention. Ciel briefly wondered if this was a healthy relationship.

Alois had gotten himself a plate, had piled it with food and had found Sebastian. Instead of listening to Ciel's musical genius, he started a one-sided conversation.

Somewhere across the room, another pair of eyes was fixed on him more intently than the rest were. The other guests started chatting again, keeping their voices low as if not to stifle the music, but there was one stare that persisted.

Ciel ended the first piece and earned polite applause before he started the next one.

**OOO**

The half an hour was over faster than expected. Seeing that people were trying to approach him, Ciel quickly went to Sebastian standing by the door, grabbed the artist hand and quickly lead him up to the second storey where a smaller amount of people were drinking and discussing art. The boy and the artist earned and returned polite nods, but thankfully nobody made a move to approach them.

"Geez, Ciel, stop running off!"

Ciel rolled his eyes. "Alois."

The boy walked around Sebastian, now obnoxiously chewing on a piece of bubble gum which seemed to annoy the older man, popping it occasionally. "You did a good job up there," the dancer finally said.

"Thank you," Ciel murmured, glancing at Sebastian who didn't appear to be very pleased with the current situation. But the artist held up four fingers and Ciel, understanding, nodded. Did he really have so little time left?

"Ciel! Alois! And my muse-murdering BFF! Good to see you." Undertaker appeared out of nowhere, approaching them with his arms spread wide. It was strange to see his hands without the sleeves of his too-big pullovers covering at least half of them.

"Please don't call me your BFF," Sebastian said blandly as Undertaker threw an arm around his shoulders. "I'm not."

Ciel found it quite interesting that Sebastian had completely ignored to comment on the part where Undertaker called him a murderer in public. He could see the resigned irritation in the artist's eyes, though.

"You could be my ex-damsel in distress if you want." Undertaker grinned. "God knows I've been saving you a lot during our childhood."

Sebastian gave him a very, very dry look.

"You never told me that you saved him _multiple_ times," Gregory said to Undertaker, appearing behind the photographer's shoulder from… somewhere. When exactly had Gregory joined them?

"Oh, I did," Undertaker chimed, obviously pleased when Sebastian only made a small noise in the back of his throat but made no move to interrupt, "I defended his honour a lot. The kids bullied him, but they ended up having nightmares about me as soon as I was done with them, so they wouldn't even look at my BFF the wrong way."

"Stop calling me that."

"Sorry. My damsel." The photographer giggled.

"I think I hate you now," Sebastian murmured. "Are you drunk?"

"Never," Undertaker replied, awkwardly emphasising the 'v'. "I don't _need_ alcohol to get me into this state. I'm simply ecstatic to see you! My sweet damsel."

Ciel had to try very hard not to laugh.

"You're drunk." Sebastian said this very seriously. Even Gregory seemed amused.

The photographer/mortician simply grinned widely at his friend but, well, he wasn't denying it now. Sebastian checked the time on his watch and peeled Undertaker off him before he took Ciel by his arm and excused them with a charming smile. Knowing that the time was ready, the boy followed without complaint, feeling a sense of dread wash over him.

"Can we speak safely?" he asked quietly as they passed the other guests, stopping after a while and pretending to look at the displayed art.

"There are no listening devices," Sebastian said in a lone tone. They passed a pair of songbirds and Sebastian followed them with his gaze. "At least none that you can dispose of."

"Did Lau see them?"

"He said that he saw a cloaked figure entering the master bedroom an hour before your little concert. So far, nobody else has entered or left the room."

"The master bedroom?" Ciel repeated.

"He probably thinks it's the safest place in his house." Sebastian looked at the guests warily. "He has cameras there."

"So?" Ciel fisted his hands by his side. "Is it them?"

"Lau has no access to those cameras."

"He doesn't?" Ciel barely realised that he had raised his voice until Sebastian shushed him. "What are you paying him for?" he asked in a lower voice.

Sebastian seemed amused. "I'm not paying him at all."

The boy could have slapped himself for that one. "Well, we'll see where it gets you."

The artists chuckled. "I'll remember to pay him with force the next time I want something from him." He still had his hand curled around the boy's lower arm, and his amused expression faltered slightly. "It's going to start soon. Go."

Ciel took a deep breath. This was it. "I'm going to get a whole chocolate cake for myself when I come back."

Sebastian rolled his eyes, a smile playing around his lips. "Sure." His hand lingered on Ciel's lower arm, a source of comfortable warmth that seeped through the boy's thin shirt. "Be safe," Sebastian said.

"Uhm." Ciel inwardly recoiled from the giddy feeling inside his stomach. Something was off, and he wasn't thinking about Aleister. "Yeah. Thanks. You… too." He cleared his throat and sneered at the artist's arm. "Let me go now."

"I'm not holding you back," Sebastian said.

Taking a last look at Sebastian's face, Ciel started walking away. The artist took his hand back. The skin under Ciel's shirt felt cold.

Trying to look as if he wasn't about to free abducted victims (it was harder than it sounded), Ciel made his way through the mass of guests. He knew where the master bedroom was as Aleister had shown Ciel and his Aunt Anne around, showing off the lush interior design and every bathroom that held a special theme. He had also simply burst into his favourite songbirds' rooms (it had been other girls back then, Ciel realised with a shock that had him stop dead in his tracks for a second before he collected himself quickly), just to show them how much variety he had to offer in his house. Clearly, Aleister was anything but modest, but that wasn't exactly unknown.

He had just arrived in the highest story when he heard a very suspicious "Ciel?" coming from the flight of stairs behind him.

Ciel froze. "Yes, Alois?"

"What are you doing here?" the teen asked. Ciel hadn't heard him approach, but suddenly Alois was next to him, scrutinising him.

"Going to the bathroom."

"There are bathrooms in the first two storeys." Alois frowned. "Seriously. I'm not stupid. What are you doing here? Don't try to fool me."

Ciel was spared from answering when the lights went out. Sighing in relief at Lau's good sense for timing, Ciel tried to remember which way he had to go. He took out his mobile phone to have a little bit of light. It was pitch black around them.

"Ciel?" Alois, again. "What is going on?"

"Shut _up_," Ciel murmured. He could hear the guests downstairs, but Aleister's flowery outdoor voice was missing.

... Was he going to come up and check on whoever was inside his room? Ciel had to be fast.

"Ciel."

The boy turned around sharply, glaring at Alois even though he knew that the other teen was unable to see him properly. "If you want to know what's going on, I need you to be quiet for a while and help me."

There was a pause. Ciel, who didn't have the time for that, simply started walking towards the direction he thought to be the one that lead him to Aleister's room. He heard fast but soft footsteps behind him.

"What do you want me to do?" Alois asked in a whisper.

"Just stand by the door and listen if someone is coming, alright?" After a few more moments of walking, the faint light of Ciel's mobile caught a white door. Aleister couldn't be more obvious about his bedroom door if he painted it neon pink. Besides, what _was_ his problem with the colour white, anyway?

He tested the door handle. Of course the room was locked. He knocked. "Is somebody in there?"

No answer.

Ciel knocked again. "This is Ciel Phantomhive. M-… Maurice, are you in there?"

"_Maurice_?" Alois demanded in an incredulous half-whisper. Ciel shushed him, but Alois didn't listen. "_That's_ what Claude wouldn't tell me the other week. Is he really in that room?"

Ciel knocked again. "That's what I'm _trying_ to find out."

There was a click of the lock, and if Alois had been about to say anything, it died in his throat. Ciel took another deep breath and steeled himself. "Do me a favour and stay outside. Aleister might come and somebody needs to watch out."

"Sure," Alois murmured, his voice breaking. Ciel didn't feel any better than the teen sounded.

The boy went inside.

The room smelled every bit like Aleister, making Ciel want to gag slightly. Aleister's scent matched the cultist's scent, he thought, not without fear rushing through his veins. But Ciel had a right to be afraid, hadn't he? He'd been strong for so long.

Something attacked him.

Ciel nearly screeched, whirling around and pushing at the attacker in defence. Somebody shushed above him, and in the weak light, Ciel saw a pair of tight trousers, a thin top. The boy looked further up and locked gazes with Maurice.

He had never been more relieved to see that young man's face again.

But Maurice looked so tired and exhausted, and his smile couldn't reach his eyes. Instead of saying anything, Ciel was embraced fiercely. Swallowing, the boy first had to struggle against his own flight instinct before he could awkwardly pat Maurice's back. "Is Edgar with you?" he finally asked.

Maurice shushed him. Ciel couldn't help but frown at that.

Finally, the model let go of him and walked over to where Ciel could see the bed. Somebody was sitting there. Maurice came to a halt in front of that person, and there was only silence. Ciel stepped closer to the bed. "Are you okay?" he asked the person. When the light actually hit Edgar, Ciel could answer the question for himself. The model was only a shadow of what he had once been, as if someone had etched worry and exhaustion into his face with a blunt knife, painting dark circles under his eyes with a brush and stretching the skin over his cheekbones. Edgar's lips had become sandpaper and after a short moment in which they just looked at each other, the face of the Faustus brand hid his most known feature from Ciel, hiding behind a curtain of blond hair.

Maurice held a finger to his lips when Ciel looked at him, ready to ask a question. When Ciel simply regarded him with a quizzical look, Maurice carefully brushed Edgar's hair aside, earning no protest from the older model. Instead, Edgar simply let him, leaned in even, as if Maurice's touch was something he had yearned.

Ciel tried not to think too much about what had happened to them in the last four months – four months! – and instead looked at what was around Edgar's neck: A collar.

Maurice pointed to it, to his ear, after that to the boy and Ciel understood: That collar was a listening device.

Whoever supervised it knew that he was here.

"Good to know," Ciel muttered darkly. "It's not as if shutting up is going to help now."

Maurice looked at him as if he seriously doubted the consequences of having written that note two weeks ago. How rude. Ciel was helping him, wasn't he?

Ciel ignored that look. Instead he checked the collar's lock. His gaze also caught the handcuffs around Edgar's red wrists. He looked at Maurice questioningly but the young man shrugged. How come he wasn't handcuffed, anyway?

He could care about that later. Right now he just had to get the two of them out. As soon as they were in a safe place, Ciel would ask them about Aleister. They just had to know something, didn't they?

If any of the three had heard the thud right outside the open door, they didn't show it. Ciel had started to whisper again, demanding whether Maurice had a key. The model simply shook his head.

"We go like that then. Anything I should know?" Ciel asked, starting to head towards the door. He turned around and used his mobile to give them a sliver of light. Obviously, for a reason unknown to Ciel, Edgar refused to get up. He slid backwards and rested his back against the headboard, fiercely batting away Maurice's hands. Maurice, who seemed to be stronger than Edgar despite having been here longer, didn't even make a serious effort to simply pull the other from the bed.

"Are you coming?" Ciel asked.

Edgar shook his head. Maurice's expression fell.

Ciel walked over to them again, scowling at Edgar. "I didn't come all the way here and risk my safety just to return empty-handed."

Edgar looked at him for a long time. "Well," he finally half-whispered after a few attempts to find a voice that didn't sound like him at all, "I didn't ask for you to come." And then he looked away, one hand touching the collar.

"Would you come with us if it were off?" Ciel asked.

Edgar nodded.

"We can do that after we're out of here," Ciel said. "Come on, move."

Edgar shook his head again. Maurice looked like he might cry.

"I won't come back for you," Ciel said, trying to stop his voice from quivering. This was bad. "Come with us."

And Edgar nodded towards Maurice and mouthed 'Police'.

Ciel didn't like it one bit to leave the other model here since he had come for _both_.

Surprisingly enough, it was Maurice who urged him to go. In the end, they had no time after all, Ciel knew that too. But they were leaving Edgar behind.

Right at the doorstep, Ciel stumbled over something soft. He looked down carefully, dreading to see what he thought he'd find. It was silent around them.

The moment he looked down was the moment the lights came back on. Alois lay unconscious at Ciel's feet. Before the boy had a chance to react, movement in the corner of his eye caught his attention. Right next to him was a tall, cloaked figure and the air reeked of blood.

And this time, it wasn't a hallucination.

Ciel didn't pause to look at the cultist more closely. He was here and that was the worst thing that could have happened in this night. It seemed plausible that Aleister had donned a cloak, for as the man started moving, Ciel caught a glimpse of his white trousers.

Ciel grabbed Maurice by the hand and ran. But Maurice, obviously less used to running than Ciel was with his asthma, stumbled, slowing the boy further down. Suddenly Maurice's wrist beneath Ciel's hand was gone, and he heard a thud as Maurice was pushed harshly against the wall.

And Ciel could hear a second pair of footsteps, maybe a third and while he hoped that maybe Sebastian had come along, it couldn't be him.

Sebastian wouldn't have let the cultist wrap an arm around Ciel's middle and press a damp cloth over his mouth and nose.

Yes… this was all too familiar.

Before the fear could consume him, darkness did.

* * *

_**End**_

_of_

_ACT IV – Temptation_


	30. Interlude IV: Marche Funebre

**Interlude – Marche Funebre**

Sebastian stood by the door, dishevelled, worrying, and Undertaker couldn't help but laugh at him.

"I never thought I'd see this day, dear friend!" he choked out while doubling over from the overload of amusement. "You _care_!"

"He's gone," Sebastian spat out, eyebrows furrowing in displeasure, "and all you can do is _laugh_ at me?"

News had travelled fast. Mrs Midford and her two children had already been here this morning, searching for Ciel. They must have reported him missing right after that.

Sebastian and Undertaker himself had last seen the boy yesterday evening, before the power blackout and the realisation that Ciel was gone. Aleister had searched the whole house together with Sebastian – who hadn't seemed inclined to believe a word the Viscount was saying about not having seen Ciel around after his concert-, but they hadn't found anything. Needless to say that Sebastian had gone bloody mad since then, pacing, shouting, and being his very irritated self, a trait that he only showed along with a large amount of self-control. This must be the first time for Sebastian to lose his mind over something.

Come to think of it… "I should make a story," Undertaker said.

Sebastian cursed. He could _do_ that? "Listen, I'm not going to–"

"But I'm not going to start at the beginning, no, no." Undertaker held up a hand. "How about this: 'There once was a demon prince with a smile that mocked any angel's and with words sweeter than honey.' It's going to be a fairy tale without fairies."

"Undertaker," Sebastian said warningly, leaning against the wall in the narrow hallway and burying his face in his hands as if trying to compose himself behind them.

"_But the prince had learned from his family that certain actions and certain words end in certain ways. And there was this monster deep, deep inside of him…_" Undertaker would have loved to poke at Sebastian's stomach right now, but he knew that his friend was just about to snap, so the mortician just moved a little bit closer – a teeny tiny bit – and breathed, "_The monster was hungry_."

The artist lowered his hands and stared at him, confusion, bewilderment and anger written all over his usually composed features. "There is no monster."

"_The prince had an artistic talent_," Undertaker continued, one of his long nails touching his lips. He really should write that down. "_And that was the monster's disguise_."

"Stop it. There is no monster."

"_There was another demon, a girl, and, despite being from the same family, one could say she loved him quite a lot. Like, a __**lot**_." Undertaker smirked at the almost suffering look in Sebastian's face. He knew that his friend wouldn't do anything as long as Undertaker kept his distance. Words were strong and Sebastian's story even stronger, holding a twisted appeal that kept one right where they were. "_And the monster hungered for her fragility. It spoke to the prince and offered a deal: The flow of inspiration and the ability to create with paint and brush and sometimes even marble in exchange for…_" - Undertaker giggled – "_her energy_."

"Stop it."

"_The prince said yes and went to work, draining her, wrapping her around his finger with sweet words and light touches, never with violence for he was a noble_." Undertaker smiled, but he was already feeling the tiredness settling in his bones. "_She listened, leaned into his touches, and she cracked and broke and the monster stilled its appetite. Then it told him that it was full and the prince dropped her to the ground where she shattered into a million teeny tiny pieces_-"

Sebastian growled. "Look, I'm not going to-"

"_And with the last speck of energy she gathered her sorrow, her bleeding heart and the shards that the prince left_ –"

"Ciel is gone and you still blame me for things that belong to the past. This is not the right moment!"

"_And threw them down the stairs_." Undertaker clapped into his hands, giggling. "Not the right moment, you say? Any moment is the right moment."

Sebastian remained remarkably calm when he turned around and left the house, closing the door with a silent _click_.

Undertaker's smile faltered. While this was quite amusing, it was sad to know that the friend you love like your little brother was going to lose the only thing that he ever cared for. He didn't know where Ciel was, but he knew that it couldn't possibly be safe.

There was something that had him wondering, though. Undertaker was by no means inattentive, he saw what happened around him. Unfortunately, Sebastian who had known Undertaker for far too long and knew that the mortician was sharp, had hidden whatever he'd been doing from his friend. Undertaker was aware of something going on, he'd read it in the looks that Ciel and Sebastian had exchanged. Or, rather, several things were going on, but it wasn't like he could name all of them. He lacked a certain amount of information.

Concerning Ciel and Alois' disappearance, though, Undertaker could almost assume that Sebastian knew more or at least had already a suspicion as to who it could have been.

Something he had refused to share so far. Undertaker couldn't help but find this most interesting.

He entered the living-room where Gregory was sitting on the couch, sketch book in one hand, a pencil in the other and continued the little story. "_There was another demon after that, a white sheep in the family of black sheep, one that believed in family and blood in a way so positive that he was never allowed to state it. At least not in the presence of anyone else than the prince, for the prince always said he understood and believed, too, for he brushed over his cousin's head and back just like he should. They shared whispered secrets in the dark and promised to never fight the other in this lifetime_."

"How do you know that?" Gregory cut in calmly.

"You've been listening!" Undertaker cried, excited. "Well, I've been around a lot. And since I was almost seventeen that time, I also had more experience in reading people. To be honest, I've always been better than other people at it, but that's life~"

Gregory gave a noncommittal sound.

The mortician flopped down on the carpet and lay down on his back to look up at the ceiling. He had a collage there, too. Not everybody cared to notice it, so not many people knew of it. Edgar did. Sebastian did. Gregory did.

Ciel might.

"Come sit with me, Greggie!"

Gregory obliged without any further remark. They ended up not sitting on the floor, but lying on the lush carpet, the tops of their heads almost touching, and Undertaker thrust his hands past his head, accidentally punching Gregory in the shoulder, but it didn't matter much to either of them. "The prince turned the white sheep into another black sheep very soon, but we know that one, don't we? Uh… The others are quite boring."

"What about the angel?" Gregory asked blandly.

"How did you know about Ash?" Undertaker muttered. He wasn't even _disapproving_, he was… surprised.

"You were upset after you first met Ash," Gregory said. "Your concern for the dying is touching."

Undertaker laughed loudly. _Concern_? Not in this lifetime! "Ash isn't going to die anytime soon. I must say I underestimated him the first time I saw him. As soon as I realised that he was Sebastian's muse, I thought 'Three months.' He's the first to prove me wrong. Lasted four years and didn't even die at the end."

"You must be disappointed," Gregory said calmly.

"Well, I had this beautiful coffin in which he'd have looked wonderful, you know." The smile faltered a little. "The angel fell."

"Hm?"

"The angel, Greggie. You wanted to hear his story. He fell."

* * *

Aleister let him out the next day.

Well, not out per se… but Edgar was allowed to roam the halls by Aleister's side, feel the spring sun kiss his skin through the hallways' windows. His brother didn't keep him handcuffed that often anymore, except for yesterday. So Edgar could freely stretch his arms and act as if there was no collar around his neck.

It was terrible.

Even Aleister seemed to take notice of the horror that Edgar felt. The Viscount was eerily quiet during their walk.

They arrived in one of Aleister's many saloons, the one that Edgar had always liked most. Come to think of it, he was also held captive in the room he liked most. How sad that he'd learned to despise both rooms, including the whole house, its inhabitants and his own brother. It was a rather Michaelis thing to feel.

"What's wrong?" Aleister asked, his voice trying to lull him. When Edgar didn't answer, he went on: "I understand that you are angry with me, but honestly, he asked for it. Both boys asked for it."

Edgar looked away.

"I'm just keeping you safe," Aleister said, like he had in all these months, and Edgar was starting to believe it.

Another man entered the room, dressed in casual clothes. He seemed to be of Chinese heritage. "The video feed has been deleted," he announced as he came to a halt in front of Aleister.

The Viscount thoughtfully regarded the other man. "You've completely betrayed the Michaelis family. How do you feel?"

"Pretty well, come to think of it," the Chinese man said, shrugging.

Aleister nodded. "I'll have the money delivered to you. Make sure that you do not let anything slip. I'll call you if there will be another auction." He glanced at Edgar. "I never want to see **him** in my house again. That bastard almost took Edgar away from me."

"What a cruel thing," the stranger said, sounding almost teasing.

Aleister ignored his tone. "At least I've got a trophy out of this mess."

"The kid is a beauty," the stranger supplied.

"He is, isn't he…" Aleister fell silent for a moment. "I think I'll keep him."

* * *

_fin_

* * *

_Just uploading this one real quick. I hope you enjoyed it!_

_On another note, I should probably tell you that** there won't be an update next week**. I'm not sure when I can finish the next chapters, but it's definitely not until next week. I'll try not to go on a hiatus for another month, alright?_

_See you in the final act (Surrender)! Stay shiny :D_


	31. Act V: Surrender

**A/N:** I'm back! Hope you guys are there, too. I decided to post the new chapter already because why not. Have fun, mind the warnings and the explanations that follow.

As usual: Many, many thanks to Carrie2sky who is a wonderful beta =D

**Warnings: Contains one-sided Ash/Sebastian.** But don't forget that **this is still a SebaCiel**.

Other warnings for this whole act: Imprisonment, mindfuck, possibly PTSD, crazy people, blood, dysfunctional family (I'm looking at the Michaelis here, so that's nothing new), mentions of child abuse and other things that I would loathe to spoil.

**Disclaimer:** Kuro still doesn't belong to me.

* * *

**ACT V**

_Surrender_

_(Sculpture)_

_Materials used –_

_Secrectsecretsecret__**SECRET**_

* * *

**Chapter 27**

_Sebastian picks up the phone and a world collapses above him._

"He killed her."_ Ash whispers on the other end of the line._

"_I… beg your pardon?" Sebastian asks and puts down the brush he's been holding._

"ANGELA… He KILLED her."

_The words dawn on him just a few seconds later. "What happened?" When Ash doesn't answer immediately, Sebastian gets up from where he's been sitting. "Ash! Tell me what happened!"_

"He ran her over!"_ Ash's voice breaks on the other end of the line. _"He ran her over, that bastard!"

_Sebastian works his jaw in thought, trying to ignore the obvious pain of the other man. "I…" He doesn't want to say he's sorry. Ash is too agitated to take it for the sincere statement that it is. "Why don't you come over?"_

_He doesn't ask why Ash has called him now after two months of sparse conversation. Him, of all people._

_He wonders how much of an accident this really was. Angela's condition had been worsening over the months and Ash flat out refused getting professional help for her after the last had failed. Sebastian had been pushing and was being pushed away, because an agitated Ash was only beautiful for so long before one started to see that his pain was draining everyone around him, too. Turns out that both of them are leeches._

_Ash doesn't come over. At ten pm, Sebastian decides that he still has some strange kind of duty to fulfil – although consoling grieving people is not something that the Michaelis do, if they are forced to fake it, they do it as if they've read a book on it; it's impersonal and more like making a business contract than anything else – and leaves his apartment. He turns around to look at the front door. His paintings are catching the interest of connoisseurs and there are a few people who'd be willing to support him, make him well-known. He is going to get out of this flat and he will find himself a new home. Incidentally, he's thinking of his old home. William, that idiot sans sense for tradition, is planning on selling the Michaelis Estate that has been the home of the family head during the last two hundred years. It even was renovated before Sebastian's father had died, so it is still in an impeccable state. But William insists on that bit of rebellion and he's going to either sell it or have it taken down. Sebastian plans on keeping at least this bit of his past, no matter how cold and detached it used to be, and he's currently trying to save enough money in order to buy back the mansion._

_He finds Ash by the next traffic light, hands thrust inside the pockets of his trench coat. It is still autumn, but it is cold. There might be snow this year._

"_How long have you been standing here?" Sebastian asks incredulously. Ash called a few __**hours**__ ago. The artist touches the other's shoulder, and Ash whirls around with a sharp intake of breath, eyes wide. Sebastian finds himself with an armful of the white-haired man just one small moment later._

_What exactly is he supposed to do? He rests his chin on Ash's hair and frowns into the night, trying to wrap his head around the concept of consoling._

_Thin, long fingers dig into the material of Sebastian's coat. "He killed her," Ash whispers harshly and even though there are layers of fabric between them, it stings faintly._

"_Who is 'he'?" Sebastian mutters. _

_Ash looks up, so livid, so angry. The anger transforms into pain very quickly and Sebastian takes him upstairs to his flat. They spend the night like they usually have, without either of them going to sleep. Ash clings to his cup of tea, and he looks lost and so out of place; there is a short time in which he's angry and the next moment he just stares blankly at the wall._

_Sebastian feels a twinge deep inside his stomach and knows that everything has come to an end. Time to move on because Ash has ceased being worth it. He isn't heartless, though, which is why he helps Ash through the worst stage. There seems to be another man, this Viscount who has started supporting Ash just a while ago, and while his violet eyes darken at the mention of Aleister Chamber, Ash and he seem to be strange kind of friends._

_Sebastian cuts their ties and moves on. He never finds out who 'he' is._

_Right now, it is November._

_When the news about the Phantomhives' death hit England in December, Sebastian is currently sketching a mute girl and Aleister for the child's birthday. He is immediately struck by another idea: The irrefutable urge to paint an army of angels._

_The songbird isn't even around anymore when Aleister becomes his sponsor and the Viscount purses his lips when the news of little Ciel Phantomhive's reappearance stun England._

**OOO**

"I heard the news, yes." Ash glanced at Sebastian's face for reference, comparing it to the marmoreal head. He had a tendency to obsessively work on details. "I was also there, you see."

To be completely honest, Sebastian couldn't say why he'd come here. After that disastrous visit at Undertaker's, he had considered staying at his house. Lau had been out, or so the female voice had said when she'd picked up the phone instead of Lau. Sebastian needed to know where Ciel was.

He'd tried drawing, to calm himself down and wait a few hours, hoping that Lau would be back by then, but he'd found it impossible to lift a brush to a canvas, or take a pencil for that matter, and just do something. He felt as if someone had cut off his hands, and he was unable to create anything without them. He was unable to create anything without _Ciel_.

Sebastian had briefly entertained the idea of visiting Claude. Sooner or later, he would have to. Alois had also vanished that night, abducted from a mansion full of people. Aleister had done a good job hiding his victims immediately, as there had been no clue of anyone ever having been upstairs. If the police had found anyone upon searching the mansion (again), Sebastian was quite sure they would let the public know. The matter had become very urgent by now: Four males between the ages thirteen and twenty were now gone, and they weren't unknown to the public. The abductor left no trace whatsoever, and Aleister had become as innocent as he could get. Sebastian had told Lau to send the video feed to the police after having left the house that night, but Lau had claimed that Aleister's security system had attacked his hackers' computers with a clever virus, and if there was anything left, it sure wasn't on the criminals' computers. According to Lawrence Bluer (Sebastian had learned it from Gregory over the phone just a few hours ago), Claude had been to the police station twice, insisting that Aleister had abducted his ward. Since Aleister was as innocent as a new-born baby to the eyes of the public, the police didn't do much after the second raid hadn't brought up anything. Gregory had asked Sebastian why Claude would be so sure of Aleister being a kidnapper, but Sebastian had feigned innocence. Not many people could know.

Seeing that he couldn't go to his other acquaintances but in desperate need for distraction, he had found himself on Ash's doormat, looking into the sculptor's eyes. Ash hadn't said a word about Ciel – he did dislike him, after all -, or mentioned Aleister. Once he shooed a maid away, and ten minutes later did Sebastian remember that it had been that songbird who was now working here.

Ash… was pretty much being himself: Saying strange things, seeming very out of it. Reality was definitely not with him, and he liked threatening (or maybe it was a joke in the end?) to cut off Sebastian's hands.

Only now, he also wanted an arm.

Sebastian would prefer to keep his limbs, and Ash always had a very serious, almost contemplating look on his face whenever he had something sharp in his hands. Ash had accidentally dropped a mug today, and then he had picked up one of the larger shards, staring at them in a very contemplative manner. Sebastian had moved to take it out of Ash's hands, and the sculptor had finally settled his thoughtful gaze on him. Sebastian had sworn to never do that again.

Now they were in Ash's pitch black atelier, the light that fell through the windows was completely absorbed by the suffocating blackness around them, and somehow, maybe because of the atmosphere that this room emitted, they did come to speak about Ciel. Or rather, _Ash_ had begun talking about him: He had the audacity to ask how the boy was.

"If you were there last week," Sebastian said, "then you know what happened. I don't know how Ciel is. Besides, that was a low blow, Ash. Stop it."

"I'm sorry, I couldn't help but poke the wound a little." Ash hummed as he corrected something on Sebastian's marmoreal face. "It _is_ a wound, is it not? Is it bleeding?"

Sebastian didn't answer. This was going directions he clearly disliked.

"My pure soul bled too when Angela was taken from me." Ash sighed. He looked at Sebastian again. "Did yours bleed with me?"

"I remember you calling me a demon several times back then," Sebastian pointed out. "We have no souls."

"What a cruel person you are. Yet you hurt for the boy. Did you hurt for me?"

"Yes," Sebastian said with a sigh, hoping that this would appease Ash (a negative, a true answer would have broken all hell loose, he just knew).

"Liar." Ash smiled. "I should cut out your tongue for that."

"I like my tongue inside my mouth, thank you very much." Sebastian rolled his eyes. "You're really into cutting people lately, are you not?"

"What can I say…" Ash shrugged. "It's a thing."

Sebastian blinked several times. "You just made a joke."

"Yes, of course."

That had been an awful one. Sebastian refused to say it out loud. Instead he watched Ash work. The sculptor was in his element, working with all the attention he could muster. Sebastian saw his own sightless gaze in a face that looked too much like his.

Since he wasn't wearing his gloves or a jacket, but simply a thin sweatshirt and white slacks, Ash seemed almost inappropriately dressed for his standard. Sebastian regarded him for another moment before draining his mug of tea. Ash hadn't offered him anything else than that and his company. Sebastian would have preferred not to come back to his past, but he _was_ here, wasn't he?

"What are you going to do now?" Ash asked rather suddenly.

"Hm?" Sebastian looked up.

"About the boy." Ash seemed to hesitate before he put down his utensils, wiping his hands on his slacks.

"I'll... hope that the police find the guy who did it."

"What if he's dead by then?"

Sebastian gritted his teeth. "He won't be."

"Says who?" The voice was right next to his ear, but Sebastian calmly locked gazes with Ash. "Be realistic," the sculptor said. "He might be dead already."

"What are you onto, Ash?"

"Nothing," Ash said innocently. "What's so wrong about stating every possibility?"

Sebastian didn't answer. They were too close for his liking. "What are you trying to achieve?"

"Maybe… I can help?"

Sebastian frowned at him. He could already see how it would end: Ash wouldn't crook a finger to help the actual search, but he would basically tie a knot into his own spine trying to achieve an ulterior motive that must have to do with Sebastian. It was most likely, considering that Ash almost seemed to detest Ciel. "I'm well off, thank you. There are people I know who can help. I wouldn't want to put you in danger."

Ash regarded him calmly. "All I want is to eternalise you."

"And you're doing a wonderful job at it," Sebastian said, nodding at the statue.

"Oh, that's nothing." Ash shook his head and then finally put some distance between himself and Sebastian. His eyes were glued to Sebastian's fingers. Upon noticing that, Sebastian stopped tapping them against his thighs.

"I should go," Sebastian said, getting up.

"What about Angela?" Ash asked. "You brought lilies again. Let's bring them to her. You need to say goodbye to her."

After a moment of contemplation, Sebastian nodded. "I don't see why not." He took the flowers and followed Ash to the chapel.

"Whatever your boy did that day, it interrupted the exhibition and the auction." Ash said this as if it were more important than the abduction of Ciel and Alois. "I do need to live off something, you see."

"What happened to love and air?" Sebastian muttered sarcastically.

"Whenever you're ready."

After having taken a sharp inhale for extra-courage, Sebastian grabbed Ash by the shoulders and pressed him against a wall, exactly between two paintings that he recognised as his own. The lilies fell to the ground beside them, and for a short moment, Ash's gaze followed them to the floor. "You _are_ a masochist, aren't you?"

Ash raised a thin eyebrow. "Not that I'm informed of. I simply recognise potential when I see it."

"Look,-"

"_No_. You _need_ to understand." Ash grinned now, seemingly certain. "You cannot deny that you are interested. I could be your muse again, and you could be mine. Where's the problem?"

"The problem is that Ciel has been kidnapped and that you cannot decide whether you want to be of help or simply in the way."

"You declined my offer." Ash shrugged, the fabric clenched between Sebastian's fingers moving slightly over the flesh it covered. "Though I'd prefer to be by your side instead of in the way."

"You said yourself that it was one of the worst experiences you've had so far," Sebastian said. "Why would you want to go back to that, and I quote, 'mental torture'?"

Ash seemed perfectly comfortable with being pinned against a wall. So close to him, Sebastian realised that the man's scent hadn't changed much in those years. He was still using the same cologne, that was for sure. Sebastian even remembered the scent of Ash's shampoo from back then, and that memory was not helping at _all_.

"I want you to draw my portrait," the white-haired man said suddenly. "It's a commission. You're getting paid for it."

"No."

"I'll be paying a very high sum. How much do you want?"

"Ash. Don't. I refuse to draw your portrait and I refuse to re-establish something from the past."

"Really?" Ash smiled serenely. "I see a filthy liar. He's standing right in front of me."

Sebastian frowned at him. "I believe I don't follow."

"Your words may be able to hide your interest from me," Ash began. "But you're still standing very close to me, aren't you? Also, you're still touching me."

Sebastian let go as if he'd burnt his hands. And maybe he had. Ash had the audacity to keep on smiling knowingly as he picked up the fallen lilies. "You know, having a muse incorporates interesting dynamics."

"Does it?" Sebastian muttered. They started walking again.

"Why yes, of course." Ash sounded too happy. "It's an affair; it's about loving and lusting after the idea that the muse represents. You _crave_ an idea. And then you want to know everything about that idea's vessel. You want to take it apart and see what it is made of. The artist can be very selfish, drinking all that the muse has and giving so little in return. All in a very metaphorical sense, of course. And then it really becomes physical."

Sebastian almost stopped dead in his tracks but forced himself to go on and act as if he didn't care.

"What if the artist starts to lust not only after the idea, but also the _person_ behind the idea? What if he enters dangerous grounds by getting _involved_ with his muse on a level that is outside the realm of the mere idea?" Ash hummed, furrowing his eyebrows for show. "The artist meets a muse that evokes revolting feelings inside him, terrible things. You want to know what those are, Sebastian?"

The artist remained quiet. Could it be? Did Ash know? He couldn't!

"Well, the artist may or may not have done things that could get him in jail. Such an impure man. I doubt that there would have been a problem had the person been… an adult." Ash stopped, turning around to face him. Suddenly, they were way too close for Sebastian's liking; the length of their bodies would touch if one of them so much as twitched. Ash was still smiling, but Sebastian was looking at him with a hard glint in his eyes, bracing himself for the worst when the white-haired man leaned in. He felt that this was a crucial moment, and he refused to be the one to give in.

"But I didn't think you'd lust for such young flesh. First your cousins and now this." Ash touched a finger to Sebastian's chest and pressed hard, pushing it against the breastbone underneath the fabric of a black pullover. "You should be set on fire to cleanse that poor, filthy soul of yours."

Sebastian didn't even dare breathe. "How did you know?" he asked.

Ash regarded him calmly. His breath smelled of peppermint. "All you need is a good pair of eyes and a mind that understands the corrupted souls on this planet. The signs have been there from moment number one. As an outsider with the knowledge of an insider, it was hard to miss… But a boy, Sebastian? I wish you were better than my sister's killer, I really do. I find it difficult to tell myself that you are."

"First you want me to take you as my muse and now you're accusing me of not being better than a man I do not know?" Sebastian sighed, and his exhale brushed against Ash's fringe. "Don't try to manipulate me."

"I'm not trying to do anything," Ash said, and the way he said it told Sebastian that this was a lie. "It is _you_ who needs me. And I have a very selfless soul. You need me, and I shall be there."

"I don't need you," Sebastian said. "And I'm going to leave now. Give Angela my regards."

Ash stared at him. "You're leaving."

"I believe that's what I said, yes."

"Didn't you understand a _word_ I was saying?" Ash seemed incredulous. "First you break the people around you, now you break the law. You have a very, _very_ dirtied soul and yet you do not take the salvation offered to you?"

"Ash, I don't need you and your idea of salvation." Sebastian shook his head and took a step back. "I'm leaving now. I'm not going to come back, and you are not going to be my muse again."

"But you want it."

"No," Sebastian said. "But _you_ do. Very much so." A last time, he leaned in, studying the other artist's eyes. "Your pupils are dilated." This hallway was very well lit.

Ash refused to back away at that statement. His face finally twisted into a snarl. "I know you too well, Sebastian. You cannot hide from me. I know you _inside out_."

Sebastian turned around to leave. "Goodbye, Ash."

"You know my sister's killer."

Quiet dread filled the artist. He continued walking.

"May the angels have mercy on your impure soul," Ash called after him.

"I'm sure you can put in a word for me," Sebastian replied and left the house.

He only felt relief when he woke up the next morning after an hour of sleep and found himself in his own room.

* * *

_So far so good! This was the beginning of Act V! I hope you... enjoyed. Also, on a sidenote: The Ciel chapters will be a bit less than before. We won't have regular POV switches between the chapters. _

_The next chapter will be posted next Tuesday/Wednesday! Until then :) *runs away*_


	32. Surrender II

**A/N: **Thank you all so much for your reviews! I - as always - appreciate them very much.

A few words no the coming chapters: I have finished writing Crescendo. The last chapters will have to be beta'd, but Crescendo ends in eight chapters + the epilogue. Updates will come more than once weekly, so don't forget to check for new updates ;)

Oh, and the next chapters will shorter than what you all are used to, but hey, increased update rate? You'll get shorter chapters but more updates. It's a deal , right?

Anyway, enjoy!

**Chapter 28**

Ciel woke up with a start. Surprisingly enough, he wasn't in a cold stone cell but lying on a soft mattress in a beautifully decorated room. On top of him lay exquisite silk covers and when he pushed them back to sit up, the room had an agreeable temperature. There was a bowl of fruit on a table near the thick curtains hiding the windows behind them.

He found this grotesque enough to prefer the stone cell to this any day.

Above him the lights were on, and Ciel searched but didn't find a watch. When he put his feet on the carpeted ground, he found a pair of house shoes standing next to the bed. He looked back at it and realised that this was a double bed. Someone had slept on the other side of it. Someone that smelled too female to be Sebastian. Only when the background noise stopped did Ciel notice that there was someone in the room next to him who had just taken a shower.

Ciel got up. He ignored the stupid house shoes and went straight for the door. He tried it, but it wouldn't open. He yanked at it, but it still wouldn't budge.

He looked up and found a miniature camera in the left corner above the door.

Ciel didn't know what had happened after he got drugged, but the most probable assumption that he had was that he was at Aleister's. He just had to be. This had been the guest room he'd slept in when his aunt had still been alive. Facing this room was the one in which Angelina had slept. She'd exited it the next morning moaning about her headache, and she'd been so busy with her hangover that she'd forgotten to replace her sleepwear for actual clothes until Ciel had pointed it out.

Upcoming panic was suddenly paired with exhaustion, and Ciel slid down the door trying not to become upset. He'd done well and had not had a panic attack in a few months. He was not going to have one now. That would be extremely pointless and unnecessary and he still didn't know who was in the adjoining room and whether they were out to hurt him, female or not.

The door to the bathroom opened and out came Maurice. Ciel didn't know whether to be relieved or alarmed. Maurice being here meant that he wasn't dead and hadn't been punished for trying to flee. At least Ciel couldn't see any blemish on the young man's thighs and arms (short shorts and tank tops, Aleister had very clear preferences on how Maurice had to dress). Looking down at himself, Ciel was glad to find a loose pair of pants and a tight shirt. He wondered if the wardrobe had been filled, but he couldn't find the strength to get up.

"You smell like a girl," he told Maurice.

Maurice cocked an eyebrow. He sniffed at his arm and shrugged.

"What happened?" Ciel asked.

Maurice held up a hand and went to the table. Next to the fruit bowl was a staple of papers and a crayon. While Maurice scribbled away, Ciel took the time to gather his strength and get up. He went over to the curtains and pushed them away, only to find the blinds down. Whether they were up or down didn't seem to be controllable from this room. Ciel could find no switch. There wasn't even a light switch.

"What time is it?" he asked.

Maurice shrugged.

"What day is it?"

Maurice shrugged again.

"Where is Alois?"

Maurice shrugged _again_.

"Is there anything you _do_ know?!" Ciel hissed angrily. He knew he shouldn't blame Maurice for being locked up with him, but on the other hand the guy should at least make an effort to find something out.

Maurice finished writing and shoved the paper into Ciel's hands, obviously not very pleased. Ciel tried to fight his own annoyance and looked down at the sheet of paper.

_There are two cameras in the bedroom, but none in the bathroom, although we have listening devices in both rooms. The necklace that you are wearing monitors your heart rate, but don't try to kill yourself, because he will bring you back. Do not take it off because he'll want to punish you for that._

_So far we haven't got any food except for the fruit that has been here when I woke up. There are six bottles of water right under the table. You better not mind that we have to share a bed. There are undergarments, trousers and shirts in your size and mine in the wardrobe. I received this paper to communicate with you, but I'd prefer we found another way._

_Oh, and do try to keep yourself together. We're going to stay here for a long time._

_Also, escape attempts will be futile. Before and after I wrote the other note to you, I've tried to escape three times._

Ciel wasn't panicking anymore when he finished the note. He was almost bristling. Maurice was watching him calmly, and Ciel went to him to rip the crayon from his fingers. '_What do you suggest we do instead of speaking?',_ he wrote.

Maurice held out his hand patiently for Ciel to place the crayon in it. '_I can lip read. I could also teach you some sign language and we can sit by the door to communicate. It's the only spot the cameras can't reach.'_

'_He would think that we're trying to escape.'_

'_Why would he? He knows he'll catch us, so he won't be worried when we disappear and/or when you stay silent.'_

"I'm glad for my relative privacy," Ciel said dryly. Maurice glared at him. "Which part of the house is this?"

'_The east wing,'_ was Maurice's written answer. Ciel could have sworn that his guest room had been in the west wing, but this could be a room that happened to look like the one he'd slept in. On the other hand… Aleister wasn't one to have two similar rooms in his house. Not even the bathrooms were spared from this rule.

"What are we going to do now?" he asked.

And so it happened that Maurice sat him down on the bed ( the only place to sit apart from the floor) and started to teach him sign language. Ciel immediately tried his best to pay attention. He didn't know how long it was until he had the alphabet stored in his memory. He'd have to see if was still there in a few hours. He started spelling out the objects that Maurice would point at, and he would whisper the words that Maurice spelled with his hands. In this time he managed to forget where he was, but that all changed when he noticed that he could feel the tips of his hair against the skin beneath his right eye.

He wasn't wearing his eye patch.

Ciel froze in the middle of spelling 'apple' and Maurice looked at him dubiously. Maurice had been looking at him all this time and had seen the eye and oh god, they were in Aleister's house who was the cultist and Ciel had escaped but now he was back and he was being watched and – and –

"Shhh." A hand softly touched his shoulders, and Ciel pulled away. His own ragged breathing filled the air; the situation now hit him with a stunning force. He was back. He was back from where he had escaped. He was in the very same situation, and Maurice was just another poor soul that would have to die by the hands of the cultist.

Ciel just wanted to be in the Michaelis mansion, sitting on a sofa or lying in bed while in Sebastian's embrace. Instead he was here, in a situation in which his worst nightmare would repeat itself. He would be starved and beaten, touched where he didn't want people to touch him, and that one cultist would always kiss him on his right temple and hold his hand and brush away his hair in order to see the mangled eye.

He wanted to leave. He wanted to _leave_.

Hands wrapped themselves around Ciel's wrists, and the boy was pushed back into the mattress. Ciel let out a scream, struggled, but the other person was too strong. Anytime now, they'd be going for his clothes, and they were going to leer at his body as if they had the right to, and Ciel pressed his eyes closed, deciding to spare his strength and let them get on with it. He'd bury his hatred deep inside his chest and concentrate his energy on his revenge.

But nothing happened after he gave up the fight. Ciel slowly opened his eyes again and locked gazes with Maurice hovering above him with a worried expression. Who'd have thought Maurice could pull that face off for anyone who wasn't Edgar?

Maurice wasn't dangerous. Despite his aversion to lying on a bed with his wrist held tightly, Ciel forced himself to calm down, gradually relaxing. "Please get off me," he said to Maurice once he was sure he wouldn't lose his head again. The model did as he was told and let go of Ciel's wrists, moving back to his side of the bed where he sat with his legs folded beneath him. He eyed the boy critically before letting out a loud huff. As he crawled under the covers and turned his back to Ciel, the boy found the other camera in the upper corner by the windows. The boy closed his eyes and opened them again.

He was going to survive. He had done it once before. He'd do it a second time if he had to.


	33. Surrender III

**Chapter 29**

Lau shook his head. "I'm sorry. The data has been completely erased." He took a sip from his cup, looking around the saloon. "We read comic books here when we were kids."

"Really? In this saloon?" Sebastian smiled despite the bad news. "I forgot."

"You wound me." Lau leaned back in his seat. "But I won't hold a grudge for long."

"How kind of you." Sebastian refilled his cup. "Back to business, though: Are there any other things we can do?"

"We really should entertain the idea of two people being involved," Lau said. "Where would Aleister bring his girls if not to that other person? There has been no auction so far; someone must be hiding the songbirds and the boys for him."

"Who would that be?" Sebastian asked.

"The same person who was also involved in the death of Ciel's parents, of course."

"Of course." Sebastian sighed. "Lau, we need more than that. Did you do a background check-up on rivals of Funtom Industries?"

"My people don't think that there is a candidate who hated Vincent Phantomhive enough to burn him down among Funtom's rivals. _Aleister_ is very likely the one that did it. Either he burnt the house down or he is the cultist."

"Or he's both," Sebastian said.

"Or he's neither." Lau gave Sebastian a long, hard look. He put his cup on the table and laced his fingers together. "I might have a lead."

"You do?"

Lau nodded. "You trust me, don't you?"

Sebastian chuckled. "Only as far as I can throw you."

"I have great faith in your throwing skills." Lau grinned. "But no, seriously. Do you trust me?"

"Yes, Lau, I do." Sebastian raised an eyebrow and tried to ignore the unpleasant feeling in his stomach. "I did call you on this for a reason: Your family has always been the only one that mine can trust."

"I am honoured," Lau said and bowed his head. "I am truly honoured. Could you do me favour?"

Now that made Sebastian suspicious. "It depends," he said.

Lau smirked at him. "Don't worry, it's nothing terrible. Just promise to keep an eye on everybody around you: Your friends, your acquaintances… your family."

Sebastian frowned. Why would Lau want him to keep an eye on his family? "Well, you can count yourself lucky that I intended to speak with Claude-"

"Not just Claude," Lau interrupted smoothly.

"-But I don't even know where William is at the moment," Sebastian finished. "As you know, we hate each other."

"Keep an eye on everyone around you," Lau said. "Everyone is a suspect now. From William to your friend Undertaker, almost everyone in your circle of acquaintances had at least one meeting with the Phantomhives before they died."

"Undertaker only had them buried," Sebastian pointed out. "He acted as if he knew them, but he simply wanted a laugh, so he claimed to have known them."

"Isn't he a precious fellow?" Lau asked sweetly. "Are you honestly trying to tell me that a guy who laughs during funerals is completely innocent in a case such as this?"

Sebastian remained silent.

"Don't worry, my friend. I'm just telling you to keep your eyes open. Even your actor friends could be involved in the whole thing. If they aren't, it's just as well, but it is likely that the cultist had a accomplice who had also been around Ciel in the last months."

Finally Sebastian nodded. "Alright. I will keep my eyes open. You, however, should find Ciel."

Lau took the cue and got up. "Give me time. My people will find the boy, even if Aleister hid him on another continent."

"I trust you will," Sebastian said, picking up the cup again and lifting it to his lips.

"Thank you," Lau replied, "you are a good friend."

**OOO**

By midday, Undertaker stood on Sebastian's doormat.

They regarded each other for a very long moment until Sebastian stepped aside to let his friend inside. Undertaker broke out into a wide grin, and even though he was holding a small tray in his hands, he hugged Sebastian tightly before he thought of his dirty shoes and took them off.

"I made cookies," he said as they walked up the stairs. "Look," he continued even though he was walking behind Sebastian and Sebastian would not turn around in the middle of the stairs, "they look like Ciel. I even gave them all an eye patch."

"Are you serious?" Sebastian did turn around in the middle of the stairs. "You want me to eat cookies that look like Ciel?"

Undertaker shrugged. "Really. It was Gregory's idea. I wanted to make alphabet cookies and spell out 'Dude, you really suck at babysitting your muses,' but Gregory was vehemently against it. He even _scowled_ at me. He _scowled_. At _me_."

"Yes, that is incredibly horrible," Sebastian deadpanned.

"I know, right? I couldn't even imagine his face was able to _do_ that, but Greggie proved me wrong."

Sebastian could only roll his eyes at that.

They continued walking and ended up in the music room. Sebastian had spent a lot of time with Ciel here, the boy used to improvise random tunes while Sebastian would just find inspiration for his next piece of art in the boy's character that would fill the room with the currently played tune. The music room had become more of a private room, one that was only for him and Ciel.

So when Sebastian realised that he'd brought Undertaker here, he wanted to turn and leave the room immediately.

But Undertaker, being a photographer and not a musician, didn't look at the concert piano like he adored it. In fact, his eyes immediately went to the photo wall he'd put up for Sebastian. "You still have it?"

"Why should I not?" Sebastian asked. He watched Undertaker take off the foil covering the biscuits and offered a blue thing to Sebastian that had a grumpy expression and wore an eye patch. When Sebastian accepted it, Undertaker took another for himself.

"Just wondering. You even added to it," he said, grinning at the picture he took the night before Ash's Silvestre party.

Sebastian smiled. "I really like that one, you know."

"I can imagine." Undertaker pulled out an envelope from his back pocket and handed it over to Sebastian. "Since the photos are still there, I thought you might want to add this one, too," he croaked. "Now let me bring those biscuits to the next salon. I'll be waiting there. But hurry, because I'm going to take a fizzy drink from your fridge and pour it all over you cou-"

"There are no fizzy drinks in this house," Sebastian interrupted as he took out the photograph. Ciel and Gregory were on it, both incredibly unenthusiastic about Undertaker taking photos of them. They were sitting on Undertaker's sofa, and Ciel was looking up from one of Gregory's sketches. Next to them were Alois' appallingly purple knee-high socks as well as his school bag.

Sebastian felt the sudden urge to punch something. Undertaker had done nothing wrong, but Sebastian was mad at himself. How could he have let Ciel go upstairs and try to rescue Aleister's victims? Couldn't one of Lau's men have done it? Sebastian should have ignored Ciel's words. He should have let someone else do it.

And now Ciel was gone, and he wouldn't come back so soon.

(If at all.)

Sebastian put the photograph on the concert piano's keys before he exited the room. He went to the room in which he suspected Undertaker, hoping that his friend would at least try to distract him. Sebastian sat down on the couch, and Undertaker had an extremely annoying moment in which he wouldn't sit still before he opened his mouth and said: "You know I love you right?"

Sebastian tried not to choke on his own spit. Undertaker's maniac laughter filled the air, telling the artist that it had only been a joke. Nevertheless, Sebastian was rather shocked, but successfully distracted until he thought of the last day at Ash's place. Since his guards were useless in Undertaker's presence, Sebastian didn't even try to hide the grimace he pulled at the thought.

And Undertaker, who had been watching him closely, noticed it despite the tears in the corners of his eyes. "What's wrong?"

"Nothing's wrong," Sebastian said. "I was at Ash's yesterday."

Undertaker managed to keep a straight face for all of two seconds. Then he starting laughing at Sebastian again; he was laughing so hard that tears were streaming down his face.

Sometimes, it was very hard for Sebastian to remember that Undertaker didn't mean to offend with his laughter. He simply had the worst sense of humour, really. He'd always had it, and Sebastian had realised that when Undertaker had laughed during Beast's funeral. They had been friends for longer than that, but that was where it really had shown that Undertaker would laugh at all the inappropriate moments, completely oblivious to the fact that some people would find offense in that.

"You, my friend, don't know what's good for you," Undertaker finally said, calming down. "Ash is dangerous."

"Dangerous?" Sebastian raised an eyebrow. "I'd rather go for clingy."

"_Dangerous_," Undertaker repeated, serious for once. "Trust me with that. Are you intending to go back to him?"

"Him or his house?" Sebastian asked. "There is a difference, you see."

"No, not anymore. He made clear what he wanted, didn't he? If you enter his house again, it will be as much an answer as actually telling him yes."

"How do you know?" Sebastian asked suspiciously.

"You are an open book to me," Undertaker said with a shrug. "I was eight when I met you, I've seen what you are capable of, and I know that appearances deceive. Take your own family, for example. Don't you try hard to appear fond of each other in public? Didn't your family successfully hide their involvement with the criminal organisation from China?"

He stopped, waited. Sebastian didn't say anything. He couldn't deny that his family had been involved with criminals, but he wondered how exactly Undertaker had found out. He and Lau were going to have words.

"Anyway it is easy to read you. I've heard a lot about Ash, and I know he makes you uncomfortable. Since he seems to have outdone himself recently, since you seem more uncomfortable, so he must have told you something you really dislike. As far as I know, you wouldn't want to start anything with him again. You told me often enough that you wouldn't." He giggled suddenly. "Although I can't say I really understand it, you know? Something's off with Ash. Something's off with Aleister. Something's off with you." Undertaker grinned. "The three of you should find each other irresistible."

'Break his neck,' something inside Sebastian's head said, and the next moment he found himself with his hands around Undertaker's throat, the ragged skin of a scar (only a quarter of it was an accident; Undertaker had _enlarged it all by himself_) was all too present beneath Sebastian's hands. Undertaker merely grinned, his eyes taunting Sebastian. Despite the fact that he wouldn't be able to breathe by now, Undertaker didn't struggle. He calmly wrapped his hands around Sebastian's wrists and waited.

After another harsh squeeze, Sebastian let go, irritated, furious, and with trembling hands and the knowledge that he had just wanted to choke his childhood friend. "You went too far," he said. "I told you that you should learn to shut up."

Undertaker chuckled, his voice hoarser than usual. Angry handprints were beginning to bloom on his pale neck. "You wouldn't want me to. Besides, I just made a joke."

Sebastian didn't react when Undertaker moved closer and put an arm around his shoulder, pulling the artist towards him. "Ash is a touchy subject," Sebastian said.

"Touchy enough to want to eliminate me the Michaelis way," Undertaker agreed with a chuckle. "Let's not talk about him. I see what he does to you."

"I should apologise," Sebastian said stiffly. He wasn't used to that, either.

"I already accepted it," Undertaker said.

"No, I need to-…" He stopped, and then tried to start afresh. He was incredibly bad at that, too. But how do you apologise in a situation like this? "I don't know what came over m-"

"Seriously, shut up." Undertaker bent forward to grab another Ciel cookie, and because his arm was still around Sebastian and still pressing the younger male close to him (_for comfort_ ,Sebastian realised, wanting to apologise again. He'd never felt so guilty in his life), Sebastian had to lean in awkwardly. Undertaker wasn't perturbed in the least.

"Now let me in on this," he said. "What have you found out so far? There must be a reason why you dislike Aleister so strongly. I've seen a serious change in your comportment towards him in the last half year. What happened?"

"I don't want to pull you into this," Sebastian said.

"Alright," Undertaker said with a cookie clenched between his teeth. He giggled. "But know that you can always come to me. You know that, right?"

"You're making me uncomfortable now," Sebastian declared. "There's comfort, and then there's overdoing it." Besides, he needed to chase Undertaker out of the house. On the other hand, what would he do when the distraction was gone? There weren't many options, and none of them would get Ciel out from his prison any sooner. He could go to Aleister, but the Viscount was probably already suspicious of Sebastian. He could annoy Lau, but the criminal wouldn't work faster just because Sebastian was trying to force him to.

"As if you have any idea of consoling," Undertaker retorted with a wide smile.

"Can't be that hard to comprehend." Sebastian frowned at him.

Undertaker couldn't hold his chuckles in anymore. He let go of Sebastian to lie on the couch, put his feet in Sebastian's lap and started giggling for all he was worth. Sebastian simply patted an ankle that was covered in a neon green sock and finally tried one of those silly Ciel cookies.

The doorbell rang.

"Expecting any visitors?" Undertaker asked curiously.

Sebastian shook his head but didn't object when Undertaker followed him downstairs. If it had been Lau, Sebastian would have received a text message first. Besides, Lau had already been here this morning, he wouldn't come here twice in one day. If it was somebody like Grell on the other side of the door, Sebastian intended to not let them in, no matter how much it would take. Or maybe it was simply Gregory who had gotten bored of being alone at Undertaker's and had decided to come here before he'd set something on fire in Undertaker's house (it had happened before and made Sebastian seriously question his acquaintances, the whole lot of them).

When Sebastian opened the door, though, the person who put their foot in the door's path wasn't Grell or Lau or Gregory.

It was William Michaelis, and next to him was Claude. And their grim expressions prophesised a storm waiting to happen.

* * *

_Hope you liked the chapter! Don't forget to leave a review =)_


	34. Surrender IV

**A/N:** And the next chapter! Enjoy.

**Chapter 30**

"Let us in," William said levelly. Claude wasn't contributing much except for the glare he usually had for Sebastian.

"No," Sebastian said. "No, I don't think so."

"He doesn't even have to listen to you," Undertaker said, "as he isn't part of your family anymore."

"That is very true," William said, "but he knows where his obligations lie. You let me in, Sebastian, or everybody will find out that you are working with the Chinese Mafia."

Claude's expression changed into a mixture of surprise, doubt, and painfully maintained indifference. Somebody definitely hadn't let him in on this.

Undertaker, though, didn't seem surprised in the least. He simply grinned when William revealed his knowledge. Sebastian sighed and let his cousins in. "They're not the Mafia. Take off your shoes."

They didn't.

Sebastian led them into the one salon he'd always hated, the one in which the paintings of his last muses hung. William eyed them with a pinched expression, Undertaker was way too interested in them, and Claude spotted his portrait and from thereon refused to look at the walls as if he was afraid to find another painting of him.

"We came for civil conversation," William said as they sat down. Undertaker promptly burst out into a fit of laughter, and not even Sebastian could hide his amusement. He knew it was childish, but this whole situation was silly.

"You want to discuss my involvement with the underground?"

William pushed his glasses up the bridge of his nose. "Yes, we do. What did you have them do? I hope you used them for proper things, like finding out who kidnapped Alois."

"And Ciel," Undertaker chimed in.

"… And Ciel," William agreed, glaring at Undertaker. It was no secret that William had disliked the silver-haired man the moment he'd seen him when they were adolescents. Maybe this hatred came from the fact that Undertaker had already proven that he was a valuable companion and William had always disliked it when he didn't get those considered as valuable. So he hated them instead.

Sebastian crossed his legs and leaned back in his seat. "How do you know that they're working for me?"

"I called," William replied. "I called and they refused to work for me on this case, but they implied that another family member had been more… quote, 'worth their time', unquote." He raised his chin. "Apart from the dead, there is only one other family member that knows of our ties to the underground. So here we are. What did you have them do?" He demonstratively looked around. "Hopefully you didn't buy their… mind-enhancing… products."

"I'm not a drug addict, but thank you very much for worrying about me," Sebastian said dryly. "I'm having them look into Ciel and Alois' disappearance, and also into Maurice and Edgar's. We have a trail, we have a suspect, and we will try to get solid proof."

Claude narrowed his eyes. "You tell me that now?"

"Why should I have told you at all?" Sebastian shot back.

Undertaker simply giggled. "Calm down, kids."

Claude ignored the photographer. "You had CRIMINALS look into this? Are you completely mad?"

"They are okay with illegal procedures," Sebastian said. "They have very good connections. And they work for the Michaelis family."

"They work for you," William corrected.

"You refused. They came back to me."

William stared at him, professionally ignoring Undertaker's giggles. The mortician sure was having a blast. After a moment's hesitation, William cleared his throat, looking annoyed and as if he'd swallowed something wholly unpleasant. Sebastian felt that way, too. He really wanted his cousins to leave before somebody attacked one of the others. It had happened often enough; that was exactly why they tried to avoid each other as best as they could.

"It doesn't matter," Sebastian finally said. "Lau and his men work for me and are very loyal people. He's one of the only people I can trust." He got up. "I suggest you leave now."

"Not before I've had a cup of tea," William answered. "Besides, as the head of the Michaelis family, and as this is a house _for_ our family, I can come and go as I wish."

"It's my house now," Sebastian said, but he'd lost the argument already. There was no use trying to get William out when he knew he had the family law on his side. As the disowned heir Sebastian couldn't do anything to stop William. Somewhere in his head he was reminded that he should be ashamed. It was a disgrace, actually, to have fallen so quickly from a position as high as his. It had taken his father only one sentence, and Sebastian had landed on the bottom of the family hierarchy, looking up at all the other members going for each other's throats. At the age of seventeen, he'd been a little bit annoyed, but mostly relieved. Now, almost a decade later, he felt the shame settling in as he regarded William in his suit that screamed of his importance, the way his cousin knew about his own status. William was now acting as the family patron, the part that Sebastian should have played. It had been his birth right.

Sebastian shook his head slightly and got up after a moment's hesitation to prepare tea for William. He made a point of preparing tea for William only, much to Claude's obvious displeasure, but apparently Will had told him to keep his mouth shut, because Claude remained relatively silent.

"I assume you are mostly here because of Alois," Sebastian said when William looked at his tea dubiously. "It's not poisoned, you know."

"I hope that it isn't," William replied with a frown. "Claude is my successor."

Oh, for Heaven's sake -

Undertaker snorted. "Idiot," he muttered, and Sebastian had to fight the grin that threatened to show his approval. He didn't mention that he had _considered_ poisoning his cousin, but that was another story. Anyway, if Claude was going to be William's successor, Sebastian would try not to be William's murderer. It was hard, though. Very hard.

"Alois is a Michaelis," William said, gritting his teeth in suppressed anger. "He may be one by adoption, but he still is one."

Ah. So it was like that. Sebastian hadn't wanted to put William in the drawer that read 'Ordinary Head of Family', but it seemed as if the blood was too strong to resist the traditions that came with it. William had caused a ruckus within and outside the family by insisting on being seen with Claude (who held a high status in the family and could be seen as a potential danger to William's life) and Sebastian (the outcast, also a danger to William's life). He had insisted on keeping the image of a content, if not happy family, despite the occasional outfalls. He had almost achieved the status of a revolutionary patriarch. While other family members weren't able to badmouth him, they had darted him with poisonous glares for wanting to change an order that was carved into the bones in the family graveyard. There had been a time in which Sebastian had thought that William simply was a rebel. Then there had been a time in which he had thought that William wasn't any different from his predecessors.

And then, once in a while when William would calm him, order him to find a way to soothe the press because of the latest faux pas, Sebastian had thought that he wouldn't have cared, had he been in his cousin's place. He had thought that William was the better patriarch. And William had certainly seemed like one, partially breaking Sebastian's exile by interacting with him (even if their interactions had been limited to quarrelling a lot), and by allowing Claude to talk to him, too. Not that Claude had enjoyed it, but since their circles of acquaintances certainly overlapped on the most vital parts, a lack of conversation would have belied the impression that the Michaelis family had wanted to make since many of its members had stepped into the public spotlight. Sebastian had of course had his problems with Claude, as well as William, but nevertheless, he couldn't deny that back then, he'd felt… somewhat accepted back into the family.

Now, though…. Now William showed that all of it had been a lie, just like the smiles they would give each other in public.

"That's alright," Sebastian said. "I can call off the search for Alois. Should he be with Ciel, I'll inform Lau to make sure that Alois stays back." This was how they worked: Bent on leaving those behind that showed that they were 'weak'.

There was a full minute of silence. William put his cup back on its saucer and placed both on the glass table before him, managing not to make a noise. Claude's body had gone completely rigid. "You _are_ your father's son," he finally snapped.

"Hush, Claude," William muttered. "We didn't come here to tell you to leave Alois behind," he said to Sebastian. "Those are procedures from the past. Things that your father and grandfather would have done, as well as every of our ancestors. Now it my turn as the head of this family. And I am not from the past." He adjusted his glasses again. "I will not allow you or anyone else to leave Alois behind."

Sebastian couldn't help but stare at him his mouth open for a reply without any words passing his lips. He looked at Undertaker who had gone very quiet and seemed to be too shocked to be amused. As somebody who had seen the workings of this family for many years, Sebastian understood his friend's surprise just as well. It also showed him that he hadn't just dreamt the words: William had actually said that he didn't want Alois harmed. He had even come here with Claude whom he disliked because Sebastian was the one to whom Lau was loyal. William, the one who had refused to work with criminals because he feared the repercussions, was now here to have said criminals save someone.

Sebastian calmly concluded that the whole world had gone mad around him. And all it had taken was the disappearance of four males.

"Alois is a Michaelis," William went on. "This is why I want him to return home safe and as unharmed as possible. I do not want the members of our family to fight each other as if they were each other's enemies. I have already let all of them know that I will not tolerate the things that my predecessors accepted."

Now he understood what the others had seen in William when they had called him a revolutionary early on, way before Sebastian's father had decided to disown his son.

"That is very nice of you," Sebastian said dryly, trying to hide the bitterness wanting to seep into his voice. Had he managed to become the family patriarch, he would never have thought of something like that.

William nodded as if to say 'Of course it's nice of me.' Kindness would never rid this man of his arrogance. "Sebastian, I have come to change something about… " He gestured vaguely at nothing at all. "This. Claude Faustus, born from a Michaelis, shall be my witness." He paused, and he and Claude exchanged looks. Sebastian knew William very well, but he knew Claude even better, so he could see that there was a slight confusion in Claude's face.

Despite him being described as a revolutionary, he pretty much did talk like their great-grandfathers would. Sebastian almost chuckled at this, but he felt like he shouldn't. For once, he actually listened to his instinct even though it would give William control of the conversation.

(Not that Sebastian ever was in control when William was around. It just didn't _work that way_.)

"I'm going to invite you back into the family," William said, and Claude's expression immediately told Sebastian that this had not been discussed. "You will attain a position just below me, and our relatives will be allowed to see you again. You will come back to our midst."

"And I will obey your orders, my men shall be your men, and you will probably want to look for a suitable wife for me now, won't you?"

William frowned. "I'm not choosing anyone's spouse. I have never done that. That tradition ended with your father."

Sebastian shook his head, knowing that he was being silly. But he couldn't' believe it. This had to be a joke, and if not, Sebastian wouldn't give away his freedom gained by having been disowned and cast away. Coming back would mean that he would still be the heir without heritage. It would mean that William wouldn't stop at telling him to keep up an image (which Sebastian had only done for his own reputation, not for his relatives') – William was going to order him around as if he were his slave. Lau would have to listen to William, and Sebastian could already imagine that this wasn't going to end very well. Lau would thus leave, unable to forgive Sebastian. Without Lau, Sebastian wouldn't – couldn't – find Ciel.

No.

"No," he said out loud. "I refuse."

"Are you sure?" William asked. "I can give you time –"

"No," Sebastian repeated. "It would not do us good."

William blinked at him. Then his surprise changed into cool anger. "Fine, " he said, his voice resembling ice. He moved to get up, but Sebastian held up a hand.

"But I will inform you on Lau's progress. I will also ask of you to keep your eyes open to anything that might seem suspicious. You have my number. Call me whenever you wish."

William blinked at him, surprise written into his features. He and Claude exchanged looks again. "I am glad to hear that," he finally said. When he came to his feet this time, he looked as friendly as possible for someone like him. "Thank you."

"You're welcome," Sebastian said. "Say hi to Grell from me."

William was immediately intent on not meeting Sebastian's or Claude's eyes anymore. Undertaker was trying hard to keep his laughter in now that the tension was gone: His shoulders were shaking with the effort. Sebastian patted his back with a grin.

"Yes… I will do that. Good luck on finding the boys. If you need anything, you may call me, too. If I'm not available, please call Claude."

"I do not want to take part in this farce of sentiment," Claude immediately said. "It's bad enough that you didn't inform me of your plans, William. I knew I shouldn't have come to you."

"Where is the problem?" William asked. "I did it for you and for our new family member." He glanced at Sebastian. "Or rather members."

"I didn't adopt Ciel," Sebastian retorted. "And I'm serious about my refusal."

"I'm sure you are," William muttered sarcastically.

Claude, apparently very angry, left the room. "I'll be waiting by the car," he told William before he slammed the door shut.

"Give it time," William said to Sebastian.

"I don't mind," Sebastian said. "Some things can still function while broken."

William nodded at him. "Goodbye, you two."

Undertaker waved. Sebastian did not move an inch before William had left the room.

And so ended the most civil conversation between them in their whole lives.

"Woah," Undertaker said. "I never thought I'd see something like this."

"Me neither," Sebastian muttered.

They looked at each other and laughed.


	35. Surrender V

**A/N: **So it's Christmas. Here, have a dark Crescendo chapter with that. Carrie2sky finished beta'ing it, and I thought well, why not. So, here you go. Merry Christmas to those that celebrate it!

**Chapter 31**

When the fruit bowl had been empty for a long time, and when they had resorted to drinking from the tap, empty bottles riddling the bedroom floor, the door opened.

Ciel was lying on top of the covers of the bed while Maurice was sleeping soundly, hiding beneath the blankets from the harsh light above them. His face was turned towards Ciel, as if he intended to watch out for the boy despite being asleep. It just reminded Ciel of how Sebastian was a pretty light sleeper. He would sleep like a rock, though, when he and Ciel shared a bed.

He wanted to see the artist again. What was he doing at the moment? Was he trying to persuade the police? Or was he discussing attack plans with Lau? Were they trying to find the flaw in Aleister's game?

Ciel didn't know where he was. He only knew that Aleister had him and Maurice captured – but not even this was a fact. Ciel couldn't say for how long they'd been here, but he'd slept six times so far, and had been awake while Maurice slept five times now. He wouldn't sleep until his body forced him into it, so they had to have been here for more than a week. Or maybe not. He couldn't tell. Fiddling with his dubious necklace, he simply thought of pulling the band off. But when he remembered that Maurice had warned him not to do that, he decided against taking it off. It would be easy enough to do that and maybe that was the point in the exercise.

Maurice opened his eyes, saw Ciel and turned away. It was a routine by now, and Ciel didn't try to find out why Maurice would do that. He guessed it had to do with Edgar. _Everything_ had to do with Edgar when it came to Maurice. His world was… pretty restricted. Ciel wondered if he appeared the same way to the blonde, but so far he hadn't uttered a word about Sebastian, so Maurice couldn't know. And he wouldn't. Ciel didn't want to risk anything. Especially not with this room being bugged.

The door opened.

Ciel found his body stiffening automatically. Who was it? Was it…?

A cloaked figure entered the room, closing the door behind them. Assuming from what Ciel could see of his silhouette, it was a man. He came closer to the bed, kicking listlessly at one of the bottles that lay on the floor, and hovered over Maurice, who, with his back turned to Ciel, stilled, his head still resting on the cushions. It seemed as if he didn't even breathe.

Ciel didn't want to be seen, but being the one lying on top of the covers, he couldn't fool himself. The cultist brushed a gloved hand over Maurice's locks, then harshly grabbed a fistful and pulled. Maurice's head followed the motion, and the model hissed, trying to sit up immediately. Only when he gotten into an upright position did the cultist remove his hand and walk around the bed to Ciel. Ciel immediately sat up to, refusing to look at Maurice behind him. He turned to the cultist to show him that he wasn't afraid of the man. He searched for eye contact, but he knew that they would never lock gazes if the cultist didn't want it. Under the hood was black material that covered the lower part of the man's face, and Ciel thus focussed on where the man's mouth lay beneath the fabric.

They did not say a word to each other, and nobody moved until the cultist touched a hand to Ciel's cheek. It smelled of blood. Ciel almost choked on air, barely managed to breathe, and started shaking when the cultist moved a finger to his damaged eye. Without paying heed to the boy who was pretty much about to surrender to his fear, he traced the scars. Ciel was repulsed by the touch beyond belief, especially when the man lifted the eyelid to look at the dead eye more properly. Without his eye patch, Ciel had resorted to squeezing the eye shut whenever Maurice had looked into his direction. The older model must have noticed but he hadn't mentioned it so far. They all kept their secrets and stories they'd rather not tell.

The cultist wouldn't have that, and he was showing this by keeping the useless eye open with force.

Ciel couldn't help himself anymore when a knife appeared out of nowhere. He screamed.

The knife didn't touch him though. It didn't even come close to him. It seemed as if the cultist had merely tried to get a strong reaction from Ciel, and there it was. Ciel found it difficult to breathe now, and he cursed his asthma for showing up whenever he certainly didn't need it. The cultist let go of him. His arm moved as if to hit Ciel, but it never made contact either. The man left. Ciel thought he heard the door fall closed.

Something was held in front of his eyes. Ciel recognised it as his inhaler, the one he'd kept in his pockets during the exhibition at Aleister's place. He grabbed it from Maurice's hands and brought it to his mouth, inhaling as best as he could. His hands were shaking so badly that he dropped it twice before he finally managed it. Maurice remained a presence in that time, hovering behind him.

Ciel didn't know how long it took him to calm down, but when he finally did, he noticed that the room smelt of cooked food. He looked around and saw Maurice who carried two plates loaded with food to the small table by the curtains (they kept them closed at all times; seeing the blinds was more agonising than looking at the red fabric). The model took a sheet of paper and wrote on it with the crayon.

'_The door is open, but he's standing there.'_

Ciel read the note and shook his head. They wouldn't get out.

And as if to underline it, the door fell closed and was locked.

**OOO**

With Maurice having been muted and the room bugged, Ciel did not want to talk either. They spent their hours in silence and had a just as silent agreement: When one of them slept, the other would stay awake. If the cultist entered the room, the watcher would wake the other up. They mostly didn't interact with each other, not out of dislike, but out of a lack of wanting to have something to do with the other. Ciel could see Alois in Maurice's place; he could see Edgar, Lawrence, Soma, Finny, or Lizzie. Maurice was interchangeable, and he would have behaved the same way to every other person.

He had a mantra these days_: I survived once; I will survive a second time._

It was easier now, because it seemed that the cultist hadn't recruited any other people. He was on his own, and as he had never really hurt Ciel in the past, Ciel believed that he wouldn't do it this time, either. The cultist held himself above that kind of torture.

He liked to do different things.

The light was always on, and no switches were in the room to turn them off. There seemed to be no night and no day, and without them, Ciel failed to understand when he actually was supposed to be tired and when not. He simply was _constantly_ tired. The light was also garish, and there was no way they could protect themselves from it. The lights on the nightstands were on, shining into their faces, and the one in the bathroom was on, too. Their blankets were silken, but they were thin.

They didn't get a lot of sleep.

More often it was silent than not.

And when the cultist entered the room, he would always present them with a knife, trace the net of scars on Ciel's cheek, and try to break Maurice. He seemed more focused on Maurice so far than on Ciel. Ciel couldn't fathom why, but maybe that was just the appeal of someone who hadn't seen all the cultist could do. Maurice had obviously not been used to this kind of imprisonment, so Ciel had once wanted to ask him how it had been before. Maurice had told him that he'd been allowed to roam the mansion whenever he had wished, and, most importantly to him, he'd been allowed to take care of Edgar, who in turn had refused to accept anything given to him if it wasn't Maurice offering it to him.

Once, the cultist had entered the room with a long lock of blond hair held together by a golden hairpin. Maurice had watched over Ciel's sleep three times after that, clutching at the strands of blond hair.

'_Sebatsian will get us out of here,'_ Ciel said with his hands. '_He will, trust me._'

Maurice shook his head in response. He lay down even if he looked much like he wanted to scream. Or cry. Or both.

The cultist didn't come for a long time. Or maybe he just hadn't appeared in two hours. Ciel didn't know. He wished he did, but he didn't.

He didn't need to be physically abused. He could feel that the cultist was doing a fine job as it was.

Or rather…. _Aleister_ was doing a fine job as it was. Maurice was losing more sleep and eating less food, and he stared a lot at the camera in the upper corner of the room these days (or nights). Ciel could feel himself stumbling around in his mind, searching for something without finding it, and that was when he knew that he wouldn't need much more in order to go crazy.

'_TALK TO ME,'_ he said to Maurice, all urgent movements of his hands.

Maurice just stared at him. _'I miss Edgar. I wonder if he's all right. Who do you miss?'_

Ciel hesitated. '_Sebastian.'_

Maurice sniffed but nodded. _'I heard he's dangerous.'_

'_Not as dangerous as Aleister.'_

Maurice raised his eyebrows. _'Aleister? Yes, he's dangerous, too, but why should he be more dangerous than this one?'_

Ciel frowned at him. '_Are you telling me this isn't Aleister who's keeping us?'_

'_This? No. No, it isn't.'_

_What?_

Ciel wanted to ask further questions, but that was when the door was opened.

Two men entered. One was the cultist. The other one was –

"Lau," Ciel croaked.

The criminal smiled at him serenely. "Who is that supposed to be?"

Damn that man! It was him! Ciel knew his voice and his face and the way he moved was also how Lau moved in Ciel's memory. That lying snake! Ciel felt a great surge of anger rising inside his chest, constricting it.

"Are they for sale?" Lau asked the man.

He shook his head.

"Such a shame," Lau said, smiling at both of them. Maurice, who didn't know him, didn't react at all, but Ciel was bristling with an anger he couldn't believe was his own. "The Viscount has been informed of the two of them being here. As far as I know, he's very angry. For one thing, he hates to know that this angel here is still alive -" He nodded into Maurice's direction who went very pale in turn. Ciel remembered that Claude had informed the police and shown them the letter. Aleister must have had footage of Maurice colliding with Ciel and slipping him something and when the police had searched his house, there must have been a mention of the note Maurice had given to Ciel. It didn't take the boy long to understand that Maurice had been sent here as a punishment. But for _death_?

… Did that mean…?

Ciel swallowed thickly. It could very well be that he was also going to die here if he didn't get out. _Help me, Sebastian_, he thought. And then he remembered that Sebastian had only power through his connections. Which, in this case, were Lau and his people.

But Lau was here, chatting with the cultist. Fear gripped Ciel, refusing to let go.

Lau must have seen it, for he grinned at Ciel. "And he'd have loved to have the Phantomhive boy."

The cultist shook his head. Ciel had never heard him speak. He wished the man would make at least a sound, so that Ciel could compare it to the voices filed in his mind, but the cultist remained stoically silent.

"I have the stuff you'll need upstairs. You said you wanted it done without a mess. Although I have to admit it was nice to look at those kids before they stop moving. They're very pretty." Lau patted the cultist's – _notAleisternotAleisternotAle ister_ – shoulder and smiled amicably. "And they will be pretty forever."

* * *

_Here, have some virtual cookies while I subtly disappear behind this wall right there. _

_New chapter will be up when it's been beta'd!_


	36. Surrender VI

**Warnings:** Mentions of past character death as well as possible suicide. Oh yes, and Ash.

**Chapter 32**

Sebastian felt like a traitor when he went to Ash a week after he'd said he would never come back again.

To him, it wasn't what Ash might think it was, but Sebastian just felt the need to check on that man, to make sure there was no worsening of the situation. Whatever that situation was. Sebastian had the feeling that somewhere, he hadn't done enough, and that it was partially his fault that Ash had become like that. After all, he had been a pretty normal person before Sebastian had stepped into his life.

Ash ushered him into his house, siling widely. Only when the doors closed behind Sebastian did Ash ask why he was here.

"I'm going to draw your portrait," Sebastian said, and he really didn't want to, but he did.

Ash grinned. "Coming to your senses, aren't you?"

Sebastian remained silent.

**OOO**

William invited himself into Sebastian's house a lot. It was strange how they had suddenly stopped quarrelling, but that didn't make them friends, either. They didn't talk. Sebastian made him tea, and William drank it without a fuss, always insisting on visiting another room in the house. He knew them all, but Sebastian indulged him.

"Any news?" William would ask.

"No," was Sebastian's regular answer. It was true. Lau hadn't called so far, hadn't provided Sebastian with any information, useful or not. It was as if he disapproved of William knowing about their deal. But it couldn't be. William had had people search Sebastian's house for hidden listening devices and cameras, but nothing had come up.

Lau didn't know of William and Claude.

Claude, for that matter, was constantly absent. When William shared a few words with Sebastian, it was usually an update on Claude as if it actually interested Sebastian. "He wants Alois back." Usually, it's a variation on these words.

Sebastian never answered. He missed Ciel a lot, but that was not William's business. They were family, but they weren't friends, and they weren't close. If William wanted someone who actually wanted him around, he should go to Grell. Grell texted his boyfriend a lot. William would roll his eyes after the twentieth time that his phone vibrated and finally took the mobile out to check his messages.

Ciel was still missing. And that was the most important thing that occupied Sebastian's mind these days.

**OOO**

"I have thought about this," Ash said one day, sitting there and staring out the window. Sebastian actually didn't have to look up for reference, and he didn't have to draw that slowly. He couldn't tell why he did both things nevertheless.

"Am I your muse again?" he asked.

"Do you want to?" Sebastian countered, disinterested.

"Yes. Yes, of course." Ash got up and approached him. He walked with a different kind of confidence than before, and Sebastian wondered what the reason could be. "All you need is ask."

"All my muses have died so far," Sebastian said.

"Your cousin hasn't." Ash smiled. "I haven't."

"Ciel hasn't, either."

Ash almost pouted. Sebastian was pretty sure he knew that technique, thus he was immune. "And where would you know that from?"

"Ciel being dead is not an option."

Ash smiled, nodded. "Talking about death… Would you mind if I made a marble coffin for you?"

Well, if that hadn't caught Sebastian off guard. "I… excuse me?"

"It would be white, of course," Ash continued. "After we've purified that soul of yours, you wouldn't need a black coffin."

"Uh," Sebastian said, which wasn't very intelligent. "Actually, Undertaker has already made one for me." That, while very weird, was just as true. Funny how Sebastian didn't mind it in the least when he remembered how Undertaker had presented that coffin to him (he had asked him to test it, and Sebastian, seventeen and drunk, had agreed). He did, however, mind it a lot when Ash talked about anything that had to do with his death.

Before Ash could answer, Sebastian's mobile went off. Sebastian excused himself, ignoring Ash's annoyed expression, and answered it when he exited Ash's study.

"_Hello there,"_ said Lau's voice.

_Finally._

"Yes. Can you call again later?"

"_Not a good time to talk?" _Lau laughed. "_Alright, half an hour, and I'll be at your house. No calling you again, this is personal. Remember what I said about keeping an eye on everyone? I know where you are right now, Sebastian. Be especially nice to that one_."

The line went dead.

Sebastian took a deep breath, let it out, and re-entered Ash's room. He wordlessly gathered his utensils and as he wanted to leave, Ash put a hand on his shoulder. Sebastian stilled, revulsion thick in his throat, and waited.

Ash turned him around, smiled at him. "Do you want to know who Angela's murderer was? There was once a man who preferred not to have his cars driven by his personnel. He killed her one day, when she ran on the street."

"She _ran_, knowing that there was a car coming?" Sebastian asked. He remembered the woman's serious depression. The next conclusion seemed logical, and as Sebastian sometimes lacked a sense for the social norms (much like Undertaker, but only less severe), he immediately blurted out his assumption. "What if she killed herself?"

"SHE DIDN'T!" Ash roared. Even Sebastian had to flinch at this. "HE killed her, do you understand that? _HE_ DID!"

Alright. Sebastian had to think. He needed to calm Ash down before things got ugly. He trusted that this man was capable of anything, especially now. Sebastian shouldn't have talked about Angela in that way. Although it seemed likely that maybe it _had_ been suicide in the end.

"He drove away," Ash said, suddenly whispering. "But I've seen his face already, you hear me? I've _seen_ his _face_."

Sebastian didn't move an inch.

"Do you want to know his name?" Ash asked. "Do you?"

"You need to rest," Sebastian said eventually. He was not going to play this game right now. He wasn't sure if he was ever ready to play it. "I'll come back tomorrow."

"Really?"

No.

"Yes," Sebastian forced himself to say. "I will." He awkwardly patted Ash's shoulder, trying not to flinch every time he felt the man's body clad in the sweatshirt. Ash hugged him. Oh god. Sebastian remembered that being their usual way to say goodbye. But that had been when Ash had still been his muse! Sebastian didn't even hug Undertaker that often, and Undertaker was his childhood friend.

He endured the embrace and said goodbye before he went to leave the house, glad that Ash hadn't asked him to stay and visit Angela. He loaded his things into his car and drove back home.

He failed to notice the other car hidden behind one of Ash's oversized statues. It remained where it was and its motor wasn't turned on once.

Despite having claimed that he'd be there in half an hour, Lau was already there, waiting for Sebastian by the entry. Sebastian didn't ask how Lau had managed to get past the security system, but simply parked his car in the garage and then opened the main door to let Lau in.

"You wanted to talk?" he asked.

"That I did," Lau said pleasantly. Sebastian wanted to remind his friend of the situation they were in. This was very likely about Ciel, and Lau might have information on the boy's whereabouts. It wasn't about a stroll in the garden, yet Lau certainly behaved as if it was exactly that.

It all ended when they actually entered the house. Lau stopped in the middle of the entrance hall, watched by Sebastian's parents, and handed his hand pistol over to Sebastian. "You trust me, right?" he asked.

Sebastian, dumbfounded, nodded. "Yes, I guess I do. Though you shouldn't entrust me with a thing like this. I was trained to hold pencils, not guns."

"You'll manage," Lau said patiently.

"What is this about?" Sebastian asked.

"I will tell you something," Lau said. "And afterwards, I will tell you something else. It is up to you to believe my words then."

"I don't follow," Sebastian said. "Are you test-"

"I betrayed you," Lau cut in. Before Sebastian had time to process that, he held up a hand. "Ciel is alive. I have confirmed Ash Landers as Ciel's captor as well as the cultist that we have been looking for."


	37. Surrender VII

**A/N: **Not gonna lie, this one's very short. Not gonna lie about the next chapter either, because that one will be about as short as this one.

And then the two-chapter-finale will come, and then there will be an epilogue and hen I shall mark this fic as complete. That's the plan. Hope you'll stick with me until then =D

**Chapter 33**

On one of those days (or nights), the door was opened and a thud was heard when Edgar's weak body hit the ground.

The door closed again immediately, but Ciel had not intended to try an escape. Maurice was immediately off the bed, kneeling next to Edgar and shaking him. Maurice did it in a way that strongly suggested he feared that Edgar wasn't real. Ciel watched them, but didn't dare move towards them. He felt like he wasn't allowed to.

Edgar finally awoke just before Maurice went from very worried to crazy. He stirred, moaned softly (so he still had his voice), and when he saw Maurice, he went very still. Ciel looked away then, giving them at least that much privacy. Their relationship had developed, it was obvious even to Ciel. He couldn't help but think about Sebastian again.

"Phantomhive?"

Ciel looked back at them, saw the way Maurice touched Edgar: lightly, painfully carefully, and the older model came to his feet, swaying. He looked malnourished, but then again, all three of them did. Edgar though was far worse off than Maurice and Ciel. He went to the bed and sat down on Maurice's side. "So we're in this together."

"It seems like it," Ciel muttered, just as Maurice informed Edgar of the devices in this room. Edgar nodded when the younger model finished his explanation.

"How come you're here?" Ciel asked.

"Trust me, my brother did not give his consent," Edgar murmured. He spat out the word 'brother' as if it was something vile, but his voice was shaking, betraying his actual feelings on that matter. "He will know soon enough. Probably does already. Where am I?"

'_At Ash Lander's house,'_ Maurice told him. '_Possibly.'_

Edgar had been pale already, but that didn't hinder his skin from becoming sickly white. "Oh, god." He combed his fingers through his hair and a few golden strands were tangled in his fingers, but he didn't care about that. "Damn it. Are you serious?" he asked Maurice.

Maurice nodded, concerned.

Edgar put a hand on his mouth. He shook his head once, twice, and then hid his face behind his hands. "Oh, god," he said again. "Shit."

Maurice, too focussed on Edgar to notice the confused look he was given by Ciel, came up to the older model and carefully took his hands in his own, frowning softly at Edgar. Edgar rejected the touch, pulled his knees to his chest and buried his fingers in his brittle hair.

"What is it?" Ciel asked.

"When my brother visited me, during my… stay at his place, he'd tell me how he'd protect me from people like…" Edgar stopped, but Ciel didn't have to hear the name to know that Edgar had wanted to say it: Aleister had told Edgar he'd protect him from people like _Ash_.

Ciel remembered that one moment during Ash's New Year's party: How he and Edgar had practically flirted with each other. He remembered Aleister's angry and then devastated expression, how he had talked to Ash afterwards.

_"I highly doubt there's anything you can do,"_ Ash had said.

And then Aleister, his voice almost poisonous_: "Believe me, there is. You're the one who's in danger."_

_"I dearly hope you aren't threatening me. If Edgar wants to talk to me, he can. You shouldn't try to restrict him." _

Aleister must have been aware of Ash's true nature back then. The way they had talked suggested that they both knew a few secrets about the other. Looking back at it, it sounded like a lost battle for Aleister. It seemed like he was all too serious about protecting Edgar – he'd gone as far as abducting him in hopes of keeping Ash away from Edgar.

It didn't justify any of Aleister's actions, but it was still shocking to understand what could have triggered Aleister to the abduction. Ciel had been right there, overhearing two fateful conversations that evening, and he'd only mulled over this for less than two minutes.

"_We need to get out of here_," Ciel mouthed. Only Maurice saw it. Edgar was too busy getting over his shock. He was simply sitting there now, staring blankly at one of the two cameras.

'_We can't_,' Maurice told him. '_I told you we can't_.'

And that was very true, unfortunately. Things looked grim: Lau seemed to be working for Ash, having provided him with substances that undoubtedly had to do with murdering one or all of those present in the room. He had betrayed Sebastian, and if it came down to who had greater power, it would undoubtedly be Lau, for Sebastian was simply an outcast in the end, and Lau had played his trust. This was not going to end well.

Later, all three of them slept on the bed. Or maybe none of them did. Ciel certainly stayed wide awake, staring at the red curtains in the garish electric light.


	38. Surrender VIII

**Chapter 34**

"What?" Sebastian couldn't believe this.

"Know that my loyalty always lies with you," Lau said, going down on one knee.

"Are you telling me the truth?" Sebastian asked. He could not help it: He felt ridiculed.

"I am," Lau said.

Sebastian sighed. Could he actually believe Lau? When they had been children, Lau had told him nothing but the truth. But as Ciel had said, people changed. Lau may or may not have lied when they met again. He may or may not be lying right now. It was hard to tell, really.

However, even if Lau had betrayed him, he was here, informing Sebastian of what he had done. This alone didn't make sense. Was he looking for forgiveness? Or had it all been part of a greater scheme?

"Is this a test?" Sebastian asked. "Are you lying about the betrayal? Or are you lying about the loyalty? Or are you lying about Ash?" Although he couldn't really say that it was fr-fetched to accuse Ash of such a thing.

"I'm not lying at all." Lau frowned. "I wouldn't have come back if I had decided to completely betray you."

"Explain yourself," Sebastian finally said. He couldn't get angry, which surprised him, considering what Lau had just said. He should be angry on Ciel's behalf at _least_. But he wasn't.

"My men and I are acquainted with both Aleister Chambers and Ash Landers." Lau smirked. "Separately."

Sebastian nodded. "Go on."

"There seems to be a vicious fight between those two parties. Aleister sometimes sells his songbirds, girls who weren't mute until he adopted them, and Ash sometimes buys them. You rarely hear anything about them afterwards.

"However, this is not the main point of why they dislike each other. According to our information, it has to do two people: Edgar Redmond and Ciel Phantomhive.

"We don't know too much, but both want… well, both of them for their own reasons. Each of them tried to put up my men against the other. You have employed us as well, and as everyone's intentions antagonise the others', I thought it was about time to choose a side."

"Which one did you choose?" Sebastian asked.

"Take a look around you. Where am I?" Lau grinned when Sebastian rolled his eyes. "I wasn't done. We needed to find out who Ciel's kidnapper was, as you told us to. However, we could never do that without getting busted. We had already suspected Aleister, but when Ash told us to get the boy for himself, he became a suspect, too. We decided to let him do what he planned to, and let him take Ciel."

"You _let_ him take Ciel." Sebastian wondered if he could aim well enough to shoot Lau in the leg.

"Yes, we let him. We told Aleister that Ash had had men with him to help him. Those were mine, of course, but Aleister doesn't have to know. As Ash had already bought Maurice from Aleister, we let him take that kid, too, and made sure not to get busted, so we didn't let Edgar escape. We really did delete the footage, though, sorry about that. It was necessary."

Well, what was done was done. Sebastian still wondered how good his aim was. He was incredibly tempted to test it. Lau had let Ash take Ciel because he'd wanted to see if Ash was the cultist?

"Ash told me later that he was glad to have Ciel back." Lau shrugged. "He said he could continue where he'd been forced to stop. To me, that's enough to assume that he indeed is the cultist. Also, his hands stink of blood. I don't know why, but they do. AND he wears a ridiculous cloak and covers his face and doesn't speak when he goes to see Ciel and Maurice.

"We have just brought Edgar to Ash. Ash wished for him, so we delivered. However, I'm sure you'll see what we did there."

"You brought most of the victims to one and the same place," Sebastian said. "We could rescue them."

"That we could."

"What about Alois?"

"He's still with Aleister. Though when Aleister calls, pretty soon, I want you to be there and hear what I will tell him."

Sebastian nodded, twirling the pistol in his hand. He knew he wouldn't shoot at Lau. He didn't even know how to unlock it. But he could still hit the criminal with it. He really could. "You _let_ Ash take Ciel."

"I believe we've established that by now, yes." Lau sighed. "Would it changed anything if I said sorry? No?... But at least we know for certain who the cultist is. And we have everything under control."

"What is Ash planning to do?" Sebastian asked.

"He's going to kill them," Lau said. "On new moon, I think."

"When's that?" Sebastian asked. As if he knew the moon calendar.

Lau pursed his lips, looking decidedly uncomfortable. "In… four days?"

"_What_?" Sebastian hissed.

Lau's phone went off.

The man immediately got up and answered it. "Yes?"

Sebastian wasn't sure what to say. He didn't even know what to think. From the way that Lau had told him, the criminal was on his side. But it was still very ambiguous. Lau could have told Aleister and Ash similar things. Everybody was against everybody, but how many of them knew it? Aleister must know that Lau had gone against Sebastian. Ash hadn't shown any indication that he knew of Lau's elaborate (and, admittedly, confusing) game. Sebastian had received a lot of information. But how true was it, and how could he know that Lau wouldn't go against him again?

"No, no, don't do that," Lau suddenly said. Sebastian looked up but realised that Lau was still on his phone, talking to Aleister. He hoped he hadn't missed too much. This was important. "Try to bargain. Gather all your girls together and go there. You will have some of my men look after you…" Aleister said something in return, and Lau nodded while pacing. "The boy," he finally said. "The Faustus boy…. Use him. Take him with you, too. He is young, blond and pretty. It'll work. Trust me."

_Trust me._

Sebastian almost snorted.

Trusting Lau had cost him Ciel's safety. Lau had promised not to harm Ciel in any way, and there he was allowing Ash to keep Ciel and possibly kill him if they didn't interfere soon.

That two-faced little bastard.

When Lau hung up, having convinced Aleister to take Alois with him and his songbirds to Ash, Sebastian casually walked over to the Chinese man and punched him. Hard.

Lau, not having expected it, stumbled backwards, immediately bringing a hand to his cheek, touching it gingerly. "You have a stronger punch than I would have thought." He pressed a tender spot and winced. "I think I deserved that one."

"You deserve many more," Sebastian said. "Where does your loyalty really lie?"

"Right here." Lau said. "This betrayal was a necessity. I hope you will forgive me for my actions. It was the fastest way to learn more without anyone else getting in danger."

"Bring Ciel back, as well as the other boys. We'll talk about your loyalty then."

Lau hesitated, the smile slipping from his face, but then he nodded. "I will prove my worth to you… But for now, we have a coup to plan."


	39. Surrender IX

**Warnings: Character death**

**Chapter 35**

Driving to Ash's house knowing that he was what Sebastian had searched for in Ciel's name was harder than anything else he'd done in a while. Knowing that Ciel was being held there made him angry with Ash, but also with himself, for he'd been there twice since Ciels disappearance, and never had he thought about Ciel being there. He'd been so caught up with his theory that it had been Aleister who had Ciel that he'd forgotten to watch out for other suspects like Lau had told him to.

Speaking of the criminal… Lau had played him well, and instead of Lau being his pawn, Sebastian had become _Lau's_ pawn in a game that only the criminal understood and played for Sebastian to whom he repeatedly swore his loyalty now. Sebastian could be mad to listen to Lau now that he knew of the betrayal. Only the criminal knew what was really going on, and Sebastian was in the position that forced him to believe and trust Lau despite the betrayal.

Sebastian wasn't going to believe him until Ciel was safe in his arms.

As he couldn't care less today, he got his phone from his jacket and called Undertaker. "If I don't call you back in three hours, call the police and send them to Ash Landers' house," he told the photographer as soon as he picked up the phone.

"_I hope you know what you're doing,"_ Undertaker said. He could have asked questions, he could have laughed at him, but he simply accepted that his friend was going to put his life in danger and that he wasn't supposed to ask any questions, anyway. Sebastian didn't know if he should find this flattering or whether he should wonder about their friendship being a healthy one or not.

"I don't know what I'm doing," Sebastian said. "He has Ciel."

Now, Undertaker laughed. _"You really care a lot about that boy, don't you?"_

"I don't know what you're talking about," Sebastian said into the phone, stiffly. Yes, he cared, and yes, he cared a lot, but not even Undertaker could know how deep Sebastian was in this. He didn't even want to know himself.

"_You sure don't,"_ Undertaker said. "_I'm going to bake cookies. Don't forget to call me once the boy is rescued. I'll make hot chocolate for him."_

Sebastian smiled. "He won't approve."

"_I'll make him approve."_ Undertaker chuckled. "_Who can resist chocolate, anyway? Are the other boys there, too?"_

"As far as Lau told me, yes. We'll try to get them all out of there." When he came closer to Ash's grounds, he decided to end the call. But one question was still burning on his tongue: "You know, you never told me how you found out about Lau aiding me."

"_It's not a long story. I met him when we were kids. You were there, too. When Greg had been little, he'd run away from his home, so I went to look for him, seeing that he would refuse to come back if his parents found him first. I met Lau on coincidence. He told me he'd help me. He actually recognised me first. We've been staying in touch since then."_

Sebastian blinked, dumbfounded. "You… were staying in touch with a criminal?"

"_Why, yes."_ Undertaker laughed_. "He offered me his help several times, but I always politely refused. And since you and I are such good friends, he told me about the Michaelis family tradition. But I wasn't aware that he was helping you. At least he didn't tell me that. I had to find it out on my own."_

Sometimes, Sebastian couldn't even believe he had friends like that. They were all mad, the whole lot of them, and Undertaker was at the very top of the hierarchy. "I'm going to have words with both you and Lau once I'm out of there."

"_Something to look forward to,"_ Undertaker cackled. _"I wouldn't want to lay out your corpse just yet, you hear me?"_

"Sure." Sebastian smiled a little. "I'll try not to die."

"_I'd have nobody to laugh at if you decide to die."_

Sebastian rolled his eyes. "What a great friend you are."

"_I know, right? Go find the kids now. They've been lost long enough. Bye."_

"Bye." Sebastian hung up and breathed in slowly, trying to gather his strength.

He was calm when he arrived at Ash's house, calm and determined to end this right there. The plan was easy enough, no matter how repulsive it was for Sebastian anyway. He'd just have to go through with it while Lau's men searched and freed Ciel and the others.

Ash welcomed him with a wide (twisted ) smile, took Sebastian's bag of drawing utensils and brought it upstairs to his atelier. Sebastian had a knife in his pocket, just in case. He held on to the lilies for Angela, silently wondering if she'd forgive him for plotting against her beloved brother. He'd liked her, somewhat. If the term family didn't leave such a sour aftertaste in his mouth, he'd have compared his feelings for her to those for a sister. Almost, at least. He'd never been good identifying what he felt for other people. But anyway, no matter how much he'd liked her, he preferred caring for the living, and Ciel was still alive and needed to be saved before he was murdered. By Ash's hand nonetheless. It had come down to choosing a side. And Sebastian was not going to choose Ash over Ciel. It was just that easy.

He continued Ash's portrait in silence, and Ash didn't speak either, as if he was waiting for Sebastian to start speaking. Eventually, Sebastian did. "I've been thinking about this a lot recently," he said. Ash perked up from where he was sitting, listening intently. "You can be my muse again, if you want."

Ash's expression lit up. "That is nice to hear. I'm glad you've come to your senses."

"I have, haven't I?" Sebastian asked, trying to keep the sarcasm out of his voice. It was harder than he'd thought.

Ash merely smiled at him. "Would you let me eternalise you?"

"Would you want me to?" Sebastian asked.

Ash's phone rang before he could answer. The man sighed and answered it. "What is it?" He was silent for a while, and Sebastian, guessing that Lau was on the other end of the line, simply returned to Ash's portrait. He didn't have to fake disinterest, knowing what was going to be said already. If Lau was on his side, of course. If he wasn't, he might inform Ash of the plan.

Sebastian felt his fingers tense around the pencil in his hand. Lau better not dare do that to him.

The bell rang and Ash hung up. "There are a few things I haven't told you yet," he said to Sebastian.

"Then we should talk about them," Sebastian answered. "But there's somebody at the door. Were you expecting anyone?" He already knew it was Aleister.

"No, I wasn't," Ash said distractedly. He frowned at a point behind Sebastian's right shoulder. "You are going to stay with me, right?"

"Ash," Sebastian said tiredly. "Go get the door, alright? I won't be going anywhere anytime soon." Especially not without Ciel.

"No, do move, please. To the blue salon."

"There's another colour aside from white in this house?" Sebastian asked with mock surprise.

Ash didn't seem to understand the sarcasm. He simply shrugged, waving his hand. "Go there, it's right down the hallway. If you want to see a show, that is."

A show? What exactly did Lau tell Ash? Why would Ash want to have both Sebastian and Aleister in a room? Was Lau on the sculptor's side after all? Or was he going to let Aleister win this game?

There was only one way to find out. Sebastian would have to see it with his own eyes. The winner would leave this house alive. He went to the blue salon and waited there, highly aware of the fact that blue had been Angela's favourite colour just after white. She'd also equalled the colour with purity, and she'd also always talked about tainted souls. There seemed to be few people whom she had deigned worthy, but if she had taken a liking to someone she'd been incredibly sweet on good days, and forcibly polite on bad ones.

He'd still liked her, for she had liked him, and because her strength had been almost poetic right up to the point where she'd killed herself. It had been too much for her, and Sebastian wondered if Ash had done anything to influence her decision to run in front of a car on that fateful day.

Sebastian took a seat in the comfortable looking armchair and waited. Eventually, Ash entered the room, catching Sebastian's gaze. He winked, and then he let Aleister inside, followed by ten songbirds and three men, a petite Chinese woman, and a man who had scales tattooed on his face. The latter was holding Alois by his arm, dragging the scared boy into the room. When Alois spotted Sebastian, his whole body became stiff, and he looked from the artist to the backs of Ash's and then Aleister's head, as if trying to find out what exactly was going on. His gaze became calculating. Sebastian had never thought the boy was capable of thinking so hard.

"Oh, you!" Aleister said, accusingly pointing at Sebastian. "What are you doing here?" He turned to Ash, livid. "What is he doing here?"

"He's observing the discussion," Ash said. "I'm afraid I've won him."

"Won me?" Sebastian asked, faking amusement. "Oh my, I wasn't aware."

Ash smirked. "Let the games begin." He took a seat in the other armchair, leaving the couch to Aleister and his songbirds. "Do sit down."

Aleister shook his head. "I'd rather stand."

"If you wish… Tea, anyone? Coffee?" Ash looked at them innocently. "No?" He shook his head in mock disappointment. "Such a shame. I have a delicious blend –"

"I came here to talk about my brother," Aleister cut in sharply. There was nothing left of the silliness he usually displayed. There was only coldness in his expression.

"That you did," Ash agreed. "What about those girls? Have brought them for me? I'm flattered."

Upon hearing this, the songbirds gathered around Aleister, their expressions betraying their nervousness. He ignored them.

"I want you to let Edgar go. You can have all of these girls in turn."

Ash sighed, looking at them intently. "But none of them are as pretty as Edgar is. He is a real beauty, you know, from head to toe."

Aleister's eyes narrowed dangerously. "Ash, I am not sure you have understood this. You have no say in this. I don't know how you managed to break into my house, but know that my people are better than whoever you've hired for that little job. You will give me my brother back and I will be ready to let you have my songbirds in return, but if you refuse, I might as well just have them take your life." He made a motion with his hand and guns clicked as they were unlocked. Five firearms were pointed at Ash.

"I'm sorry, but I do think I have a say in this," Ash said. "Edgar is not for sale. But you are welcome to leave all your songbirds here, I am sure we can become a family."

"Ran Mao." The woman aimed her gun at Sebastian who felt his insides sink. Had Lau lied to him yet again? He should have been more careful and not so quick to forgive. He shouldn't have forgiven Lau at all.

But the Chinese woman looked at him intently, and while Ash rose to his feet to shout at Aleister, she winked at Sebastian.

"You will not do this! Don't you dare!" Ash was livid now. For _Sebastian_, not for himself. Despite the guns that pointed at his forehead and chest, he took a step towards Aleister, who frowned softly. "I relieved you from your boredom and let you in on my revenge. I staged your death so that the underground would believe your other persona died. I took the songbirds that you didn't want anymore, and I have got you out of trouble more times than I can count. You will not dare have Sebastian shot, and you will not dare kill me."

"I told you my brother is not for anyone! Especially not people like you!" Aleister snarled. "I told you not to converse with him or try to get closer to him. He is not a songbird, and he is not the Phantomhive boy."

"If I remember correctly you broke the pact first by wanting the Phantomhive boy!" Ash retorted. "You expressed your interest and I said no. And yet you still wanted to take what had to come back to me."

Aleister's gaze flickered to Sebastian who did his best to fake shock. It wasn't hard, he _was_ shocked. Ash and Aleister had been partners in crime? And Ciel seemed to have been what had launched the fight between the two of them. The problem about Edgar had followed suit, intensifying their quarrel. Maurice and Alois, and all the other songbirds were another crime, a different story, but right now, the heart of this problem were Ciel and Edgar. And Ash undoubtedly was the cultist. Lau had not lied about this at least.

"Should he know any of this?" Aleister asked, suddenly distracted by Sebastian's presence.

"He belongs to me again," Ash said. "Who knows of this and who doesn't is up to me."

"It's not." Aleister scowled at him. "You have no power anymore. I have more people behind my back than you do. You killed your whole cult single-handedly. You cannot bring them back."

"I don't need to," Ash said. "I have found other people."

Aleister burst into a fit of mocking laughter. "Oh, really? And where are they now, pray tell?"

"Right behind you," Ash said with a smirk.

All the guns now pointed at Aleister's head, who went very still.

"You are a very difficult man, Aleister," Ash said. "I wouldn't have minded letting you live. You could have just given those girls and that boy to me, you _should_ have. But you decided to demand something in return that I refuse to give to you. Who do you think stole Edgar from you in the first place? Ran Mao got him away, and Snake deleted the surveillance footage." He shook his head. "You should check on your people more often. They obviously aren't very loyal to you."

Aleister snorted nervously. "They don't seem to be loyal to anyone." His voice was thin, and suddenly not so imposing anymore.

Sebastian acted as if he hadn't heard that.

"I've been working with them for a while now and I can assure you that they are pretty loyal." Ash shrugged. "To the right people, of course." He approached Aleister leisurely, touching a hand to the blond man's cheek. "You were a good partner, Aleister. I wouldn't have managed as well without you back then. Only through you did I get the Phantomhive boy as well as world-wide fame. You really are a wonderful person." He kissed Aleister's forehead. The other man didn't do anything in return.

Ash turned away from him and rounded Sebastian's armchair, leaning against its backrest. "Are you having fun?" he whispered as he bent forward to whisper in Sebastian's ear. His breath was war, tickling Sebastian's skin, and the artist tried his best not to push Ash away.

"You have a lot of explaining to do," Sebastian replied politely, and, most important of all, he remained composed, at least on the outside. Any Michaelis would have reacted that way if they didn't know what was going on. While this reaction – calmness during a situation like this, politely wanting to know what going on as soon as the most gruesome part would end – was rather… ill-fitting, it was a path Sebastian really would have chosen, had he not known what was happening. Admittedly, he couldn't deny that he was feeling a little bit lost. It seemed as if... Could it be that Aleister had been…?

"That wasn't an answer to my question," Ash muttered.

"I think it was," Sebastian replied. "But to be fair, I've never liked Aleister, so yes, I am having fun." That was a half lie. He did dislike Aleister, now more than before, but he wasn't going to enjoy what was about to come. No one deserved this.

"Wait until you see this, then," Ash whispered excitedly, not taking his eyes from Sebastian who was watching Aleister in turn.

"You should have teamed up with me," Aleister said to the artist.

"No, I don't think so," Sebastian replied.

"Is it because I took your boy from you?" Aleister laughed. "You should tell Ash how he came up there in the first place. The power blackout, the hacking into my surveillance system... It had been _your_ plan, hadn't it? Too bad you contacted my people for your little rescue mission."

Sebastian frowned, faking confusion. "I'm sorry, but I didn't contact anyone for a rescue mission. We did find out that you had Maurice and Edgar, but the power blackout was a convenience. Ciel would have gone up there anyway."

"May I?" Ash raised his hand behind Sebastian. "I was the one who had the power blackout done. I wanted to get Edgar." When Aleister's expression fell, smugness crept into Ash's voice. "This has always been a battle between you and me. I do not know what my people told you, but apparently they did really well. For you to think that _Sebastian_ –" He broke up, laughing. "This is too good." He waved a hand. "But unfortunately, I have other things to do, so let's end this quick-"

Aleister surged forward, fear touching his features for the first time. "Wait!"

"Goodbye," Ash said pointedly.

Aleister Chamber, Viscount of Druitt, died on May 17th at 2.30pm from a total of five bullets to his head and heart.


	40. Surrender X

**A/N: **Yay, finally the last chapter before the epilogue! :D Thanks for staying with this fic so far, it means a lot to me. Hope you enjoy this chapter. Epilogue will be posted either tomorrow or on Wednesday.

See you in the new year!

**Warnings: Character death**, past and current; mentions of suicide, past mutilation of corpses and mutilation of children and violation of their health. Ash. Aleister. Horror. This is going to be (very) disturbing.

**Chapter 36**

_Somewhere in a basement, hidden among boxes of unused things that would never see the daylight again, lies a single tape. It carries the date of December 14__th__. The year is barely readable._

_This tape is a trophy._

_If someone knew of this tape, if someone found it, they would witness the following:_

* * *

_December 14__th__, 6pm. It's dark outside. Aleister Chambers, Viscount of Druitt, is sitting in a saloon that will stay locked forever after this incident. He will rearrange it into a large gaming room, one that has a roulette table and where one can enjoy a game of pool. He will lose the keys and smile when somebody asks him about that room. "Never struck my fancy," he will say. "It's what my father used to do a lot. I…" – here, he will cry – "I couldn't bear its sight, because it would break my heart all over again, but how could I take anything out? My father loved this room, you see? And I loved him. He was my idol. I want to guard his memory, even if I cannot bear it." A brave sniffle. "Maybe one day, I'll be able to open it again. Wish me luck."_

_Right now, on this tape, there is a saloon. Not a gaming room. _

_And Aleister Chambers burned all of his father's possessions, as he found them ugly and without style, as they were only there to fulfil their use and nothing else. Practicality is his poison, and his father was a practical man._

_The footage also shows a songbird, dressed in an elaborate dress. She could be twelve. Aleister has slung an arm around her and is talking incessantly while smoking a cigar. In between, he checks his watch once. Twice. He's waiting for something._

"_Where is she?" he finally asks. His voice is clear. "Bathroom breaks don't take that long, do they?" He looks at the songbird questioningly. She shifts uncomfortably, regards his hand by her shoulder and shrugs._

"_She shouldn't take that long!" Aleister gets up. He gives the girl his cigar and tells her to finish it. She simply stares at it in bewilderment._

"_Rachel!" Aleister goes to the door and opens it. "Rachel, sweetie. Darling. Didn't you say the dinner's at six thirty? We wouldn't want to disappoint your son, would we now?"_

_He steps back into the room when Rachel Phantomhive appears. He's walking backwards, hiding his face from the camera._

"_There you are, dear! Ash should be waiting downstairs by now. Can we go? I must admit I'm hungry. The earlier we're there, the sooner we eat, right?" He waits. "Right?"_

_Rachel gives him one long look. She seems upset, clenching her hands into fists by her side. Aleister opens his arms. "What's wrong, love?"_

_She pushes past him. She approaches the songbird with the cigar. _

"_Yes, well, I can explain that," Aleister begins, turning around. His expression is still amicable, but there is an edge to it._

_Rachel Phantomhive crouches in front of the girl and tells her to open her mouth._

_Behind her, Aleister's body becomes rigid. His friendly expression falls. His gaze is calculating. "Now, Rachel, that's… I don't know. I'd almost say that's rude."_

"_I'm not talking to you," Rachel spits. There is history in her voice. History that speaks of past quarrels. "I'm talking to her, and I'm telling her to open her mouth, so I can see whether she has a tongue or not!"_

_The songbird is frightened now, and she looks between Aleister and Rachel while pressing into the sofa's backseat. Rachel takes the cigar from her and puts it in the ashtray on the coffee table._

"_You don't have to do what Rachel tells you," Aleister says to the girl._

"_This is important!" Rachel says forcefully. "Something is wrong with those girls. Their tongues have been cut out of their mouths."_

"_I know that," Aleister says. "You shouldn't concern yourself with that. I have people looking into this. It's terrible but I won't let you lower my daughter's self-esteem by exposing her like that. Rachel, I expected better from you."_

_Rachel looks at him sadly. "I wish I could believe you. I wish I could."_

"_I'm telling the truth," Aleister insists. "It is a serious matter. I intended not to have people talk about it. You can keep a secret, can't you?" He takes one of her hands into his and pats it. "I will wrap this up quietly. My poor girls should not become public entertainment for what has been done to them."_

"_How many girls have you adopted?" Rachel asks._

"_Six," Aleister says automatically._

_Rachel holds his gaze for a long moment. "It's twenty-eight." She's crying now. "You get them at auctions and you mutilate them, don't you? You are a sick, twisted, disgusting person, Aleister, and I wish I never met you! To think I would have let you anywhere near my _son_. It makes me sick!"_

_She yanks her hand free from his grasp and when he wants to get closer, she pulls out a knife from her skirt and takes a few steps around the couch. "Don't you dare come near me!" She grabs the songbird by her arm and yanks her close, hugging her with her free arm. The songbird seems to dislike this, as she is trying hard to get back to Aleister, who is watching them with alarming calmness._

_He shrugs and walks towards a cupboard on the other side of the room. Rachel follows his movements nervously._

"_Rachel," Aleister says at length. "You are a wonderful person. I –" He makes a motion with his hands. "I liked you very, very much. I liked you so much that I did everything in my power to make you famous. I opened every door for you. I helped you make a living with your concerts. In the last months, you've been a bit… uncooperative." He thinks about it and nods to himself. "Yes. But you know... I'm a _good_ person. I have a big heart. I have an angel's patience. I thought you would calm down. Now… I suspect it had to do with my daughters. You already suspected something and researched me, didn't you?"_

_Rachel watches him silently. _

"_My daughters are my business," Aleister says. "Literally and figuratively. What I do with them is none of your concern. I paid money for them. But they are _fine_." He spreads his arms wide. "Take a look at where you are. Are they not cared for? I always make sure they're well cared for and healthy. Their voices are a small price to pay for this luxury and comfort and the love that they get. We are a wonderful family. Aren't we?"_

_The songbird nods frantically. Rachel presses the girl even closer against her side, tearing up again. "You're lying."_

_Aleister shakes his head. "Why would I? We are happy. And you are trying to separate us." He opens a drawer and pulls out a gun. "As much as I love you, this cannot happen. Seems like our relationship has come to an end."_

_There is an audible intake of breath as he points the firearm at Rachel._

_The microphones pick up a barely audible 'Aleister?' from outside the room. Aleister remains unfazed. "One minute, please," he calls back._

"_Ash!" Rachel yells. "Ash, help! Call the police! Now!"_

_Ash Landers comes into view, frowning at the scene. "This is not how we planned it," he comments calmly._

"_Sorry, love," Aleister says. It remains unclear whom he addresses. Before Rachel can open her mouth, she is shot. Once. Twice._

_Ash curses loudly, yanking the gun from Aleister's hand. "We wanted to do it next year!" he screeches. _"Next year!"

"_We would have been in prison by next year if we had let her go!" Aleister spits back. "She knew about the girls."_

"_That wouldn't have gotten _me_ into prison." Ash looks at the corpse. "You shot her in the _head_."_

"_It's effective."_

"_It's ugly." Ash picks up the knife. He has two weapons now. Aleister seems to be acutely aware of this fact. _

"_I apologise," Aleister says stiffly._

"_You can lie to anyone," Ash says. "But do not think for one second that you can lie to me. You saved your skin and ruined my plan. Our plan._

"_Listen to me. Listen. Closely." Ash approaches him. "Do not change plans without my agreement. Never again."_

_Aleister doesn't answer. He stubbornly keeps his gaze locked with Ash's crazed one. "If you don't mind, I'm going to call my helpers to start the operation."_

_Ash nods. "Do that."_

_Aleister points at the songbird. "You can have her, you know? For free. As a condolence."_

"_**She isn't Rachel**__!" Ash roars. "Now go and make your calls."_

_Aleister, to his credit, strolls rather than stumbles out of the room. Ash throws the knife into a far corner and gets hold of the songbird as she tries to follow Aleister. He takes a long hard look at the corpse that is bleeding on the carpet and clicks his tongue, mutters things like 'unsalvageable' and 'Aleister, you will burn for this', and 'She has nice hands. I should take them.' _

_Before Ash Landers leaves the room, he looks into the camera by the door._

* * *

_This is what someone would see if they found the tape._

_But there is no tape. Not anymore._

_Someone found it already, and they burned it._

_This tape does not exist anymore but in the memory of one person._

_Rachel and Vincent Phantomhive's remains were found in the manor's hallway by the door to the library. _

_Unto this day, Vincent Phantomhive misses an arm and his head._

_Rachel Phantomhive misses both hands._

**OOO**

It seemed like the whole world had gone silent.

And then, when Aleister's body hit the ground, one of the songbirds screamed.

It wasn't Alois, it was one of the girls that should have been mute, and she was screaming like a wounded animal, her voice piercing the silence sharply. The other girls desperately clutched at Aleister's body that bled on the carpet. Sebastian could hear sniffles, sobs, he could see tears.

What had Aleister _done_ to them?

"So that must be the one with the psychological blockade," Ash muttered, eyeing the girl that still had her voice (or rather… she had it back now). "Aleister told me a lot about her."

Sebastian couldn't answer. He couldn't even move. He was in shock, he realised. He. A Michaelis. In shock. It sounded like a joke.

"Oh, goodness," Ash groaned when the girl started crying out for Aleister. "Get all of them away until they calm down."

Lau's people nodded, trying to pry the girls from their fallen captor. They vehemently refused, clinging to him, scratching the grown-ups, biting when they were touched. Only Alois stood there, his eyes wide, and obliged when the man named Snake led him from the room.

"He really pulled a number on those poor girls," Ash muttered. "No wonder they would always behave so rudely when they were brought to me. He bound them to himself." When his hand touched Sebastian's, the artist flinched and Ash laughed. "Oh my, are you really shocked? We'll leave this room, then. Do clean up once the girls have calmed down," he said to the others before he dragged Sebastian away. Sebastian looked back at Ran Mao, who simply nodded at him.

If things were going according to the plan Lau had laid out in front of Sebastian, the criminals were now going to free Ciel and the others. Alois was probably already brought to safety.

_Don't leave me hanging, Lau_, Sebastian thought. If he only knew where the other man was right now.

"I am afraid I don't understand any of this," Sebastian said when they were in the hallway. "I'd hate to have my muse keeping secrets from me, you know."

"It's nothing important." Ash waved a hand. "Not anymore." He turned around to face Sebastian. "Do you remember what I told you about Angela's killer?"

"You said I knew him," Sebastian told him. "Was it…?"

"Of course not!" Ash seemed disappointed. "It wasn't Aleister. It was Vincent Phantomhive."

Sebastian raised his eyebrows. "No."

"Yes!" Ash seemed angry all of a sudden. "And he had the gall to drive away after he'd hit Angela."

"Why didn't you go to the police?"

"It was more personal to kill him," Ash said, shrugging. "I had a group of people that shared my vision of purity. I wanted Vincent to regret what he'd done to my sister, for giving her such an undignified death. I wanted his family to regret what their patriarch had done to Angela. So I had Aleister hire people to burn down the house, but the boy survived. We changed plans and decided to teach him a lesson or two about revenge. Aleister shot his helpers afterwards, and because he wanted to give up this trader persona, we staged his death. My other persona was going to be blamed if anything went wrong.

"And something did go wrong. Ciel escaped and informed the police. I shot my followers – they were impure anyway, lost beyond salvation – and fled." He looked at Sebastian intently. "Getting the boy back was just the continuation of my revenge. I can't stop until he, too is dead… What do you think about that?"

Sebastian swallowed thickly. What had become of the Ash he'd once known? "You did all of that for your sister?" Had Angela known this would happen? Had she considered this possibility?

"Yes," Ash said vehemently. "Yes, I did. I wanted to punish the one who took her from me. She was the purest soul I knew, and she'd been burdened with the weight of the world."

"She was severely depressed, Ash. She saw no other way out." Sebastian didn't know whether to laugh or not. This was so crazy it was ridiculous already. "Angela did this to herself."

"How would you know? You weren't there!"

Sebastian remained silent. He didn't know, that was true.

"I still have her old cello," Ash said, lost in thought. "It's upstairs in the room next to mine. And I have her clarinet. It's with the cello."

"You're… That's nice of you to keep her things."

"Isn't it?" Ash murmured, nodding to himself. "Well, let's move on, shall we?" He led the way. And Sebastian followed him wearily.

"So what happened to Ciel?" he asked.

"Dead," Ash replied flatly.

"… Are you serious?" Sebastian's whole body went cold. He didn't want to believe it for Lau had said something different. But Lau could still be lying, and Ash had no real reason to lie to him now that he could call himself Sebastian's muse again, right? Well, maybe Ash did have a reason to lie: Maybe he feared that Sebastian would leave him again, even though he didn't know that Sebastian had never returned to him.

"Of course I am. Sorry for your loss." He really didn't sound the part.

The way they were taking was the one that led to Angela's spacious grave. "I want to show you something," Ash said when they entered. He went straight for the trapdoor and opened it. Beneath it was the room with the marble coffin that contained Angela's ash.

"What is it?" Sebastian asked, trying to get his mind off Ciel. The boy just had to be alive. Sebastian wouldn't know what he would do if Ciel really were dead. But he didn't have to think about it, because Ash was currently the most unreliable source when it came to Ciel's health. However, fretting about it would not help Sebastian. He himself was possibly in danger and it wouldn't do to be distracted.

But all he really wanted was to hold Ciel in his arms and never let go. He didn't want to be here with Ash, but he was, thanks to Lau, who was going to be in trouble once he'd proven his stupid loyalty. Sebastian would definitely punch him again. That thought filled him with grim satisfaction. But first he had to deal with the problem at hand.

"That isn't Angela," Ash said, sounding strangely delighted.

"What do you mean?" Sebastian asked, dread settling in his stomach.

"The ash isn't Angela's," Ash explained.

"Whose is it?"

"Vincent and Rachel Phantomhive's." Ash sighed. "They're together in death."

"The body parts that were missing from the corpses…" Sebastian wanted to gag. What had Ash done?

"Exactly." Ash smiled.

Sebastian really didn't want to ask, but he straightened from looking through the trapdoor, and Ash did the same. "So where is Angela?"

Ash – much to Sebastian's horror – simply pointed at the 'statue' behind the ice cold glass. He tried to come closer to Sebastian but he took a large step away from Ash.

"She's beautiful, my sister, isn't she?" Ash didn't look at Angela, though, but at Sebastian. "I titled this creation 'Surrender'. As in surrender to mortality. Like my sister did. Had to. Because of Vincent Phantomhive."

The true meaning of 'eternalising' dawned on Sebastian. Ash hadn't meant to use it in a symbolic sense. He had used that word literally.

And he had expressed his wish to eternalise Sebastian quite often.

Behind him a door opened.

"I imagine I'm correct here?"

Sebastian closed his eyes. This was madness.

"You're right on time, my dear friend," Ash smug voice sounded. "Have you brought what I asked you for?"

"I have. You don't need to use much on him."

Lau came to stand behind Sebastian, putting a hand on his shoulder. Sebastian opened his eyes again and watched as Ash filled a syringe with a clear liquid. "It won't hurt," the sculptor said. "I promise it won't."

"And I haven't even finished that portrait of yours," Sebastian said.

Ash smiled. "It's beautiful the way it is. You don't know how much it calms me to know that the last thing you worked on was my portrait." He pulled up Sebastian's sleeve.

When Sebastian tried to pull back, Lau's sheer strength held him in place. There was no beating that man. Lau had been trained in the martial arts and had a gang ready to catch Sebastian should he manage to flee. That one time where Sebastian had punched him was probably because Lau had let him; the man had seen it coming.

"You could never have taken me as your muse again," Ash said. "I should have tried harder instead of having you lie to me." He sighed dramatically. "You see, I also lied to you, though. Cie is still alive. I'm going to kill him. And I will display him here in this room so that my sister will know that I have avenged her death so perfectly.

"You will get your own room, Sebastian. I owe you so much." Ash smiled slowly, languidly, dangerously. And there was nothing that Sebastian could do now to save himself from his own murder.

It was time for his final words, Sebastian guessed. He wanted to tell Lau that he knew he shouldn't have trusted him. He wanted to tell Ciel that he was sorry, so sorry for not being able to get him out. Instead he watched Ash closely, whose expression was twisted into perverse glee, and the words cae flowing out of his mouth.

"You know," Sebastian said, swallowing. "You always told me about my filthy soul, but looking at you, I finally see your true self. You are worse than any other person I have met so far, and I say this as a Michaelis. You repulse me. You are the most disgusting creature that has ever crossed my path, and I feel sorry for Angela to have had a brother who became so vile so quickly, bathing her name and reputation in filth."

Ash's features contorted into undulated rage. He stopped in his tracks and stared at Sebastian, opening his mouth as if to argue.

The hesitation proved to be fatal.

A gunshot sounded, and just a moment later did Sebastian see where it hit: Ash's white clothes became red in the chest area. The sculptor was still alive, yet probably too shocked to realise that he must be in tremendous pain. He looked up at Lau, then at Sebastian.

Sebastian himself took a deep breath for what was to come and tried to feel victorious. He couldn't. He rather felt like relieving a crazed creature.

"That one was for messing with Sebastian," Lau said. He shot Ash again, this time he aimed for the heart. "And that one is for your sister."

Sebastian had seen many people dying, the ones he had called his muses started dying the moment he met them. He had never, however seen their final moments. Ash looked surprised, shocked, and Sebastian felt a wave of nausea overcome him. He bent forward but tried to keep the bile down. He wasn't used to this.

"Lau, is this your definition of fun?" Sebastian looked at the criminal. "You bastard."

Lau simply shrugged. "It was all part of the plan. I'm good at planning."

Despite himself, Sebastian chuckled. "You are a sadist."

"Maybe." Lau smirked. "Come on, let's go," When Sebastian moved to leave the room, the man grinned at him. "You look terrible."

"No thanks to you," Sebastian muttered. He eyed the syringe lying on the floor next to Ash. It was still full. "What kind of substance is that?"

"It's liquid stuff you don't want to know about," Lau said.

"I do –"

"Trust me, you don't." Lau grabbed his arm and pulled him out. "Somebody will call the police. You may want to stay for questioning. We will be going. The songbirds are free, but they don't want to leave Aleister. Alois is outside, you can tell your cousin to pick him up. Edgar and Maurice are alright, though Edgar hasn't been informed of Aleister's death just yet."

"And Ciel?" Sebastian asked.

When they reached the stairs, the questions answered itself: Ciel was standing in the entrance hall, clutching to a sky blue blanket that Ran Mao must have given him, for she stood there, massaging his shoulders. Ciel accepted her touch, but he had a very grim expression on his face. When he saw Sebastian, however, that expression changed. He immediately let the blanket fall and ran up the stairs and into Sebastian's arms. Lau patted Sebastian's back, but he was too distracted to say goodbye to the criminal because Ciel was here and Ciel was alive, and Sebastian wouldn't let him go.

"Are you okay?" he asked.

"Been better," Ciel answered. A second wave of relief washed over Sebastian when he heard that the boy still had his voice. He didn't know Ash's routine with his captives, but it had been a possibility.

Ciel's eye patch was missing and the boy had lost weight, but all in all he seemed to be doing fine, considering what could have happened.

"I missed you," Sebastian whispered.

Ciel hid his face in Sebastian's shirt in response. "Don't say that."

"Admit it, you missed me too."

"I did until I actually saw you. Gosh, keep your mouth shut."

Sebastian chuckled.

"What happened?" Ciel asked. "Is anyone…?"

"Ash and Aleister are both dead," Sebastian said. It was all Ciel had to know. He decided not to tell Ciel about his parents' mingled ash or Angela's real corpse in the guise of a statue.

Speaking of Angela…

"Lau?" Sebastian called, looking up. The man was standing outside, talking to Ran Mao. He turned around to the hugging pair at the top of the stairs.

"Yes?"

"Next to Ash's room, there is one with a cello and a clarinet case. Search both instruments for me, will you?"

"The police are coming. We called them."

"Just do it quickly, then!"

Lau sighed and nodded. "What am I looking for?"

"A note," Sebastian answered. Lau blinked at him, but if he found that odd, he didn't say it out loud. As he was about to leave, Sebastian called his name. Lau turned around, frowning.

"I trust you," Sebastian said.

Lau's expression softened and he bowed with a sincere smile on his lips. He then walked away briskly, leaving Ran Mao alone by the front door. Snake picked her up, and she waved at Sebastian, who waved in return. They left.

"I'm not going to leave you alone anymore," Sebastian murmured into Ciel's hair.

"Sounds like trouble," Ciel said. He lifted his head and peeked up at Sebastian, looking almost shy. Sebastian closed the distance between them and kissed him on the lips. They were dry and chapped, but he didn't mind. Ciel made a soft sound in the back of his throat, clutching at Sebastian's shirt.

"You know," Sebastian said when they broke the kiss, "I could love you."

Ciel blushed to the roots of his hair, his expression pinched. "You are embarrassing."

"I'm saying the truth," Sebastian said. "Don't you like it?"

"I do," Ciel said. "I really do. But don't say such things. Seriously."

Sebastian chuckled. "We should date."

"I'm thirteen," Ciel said flatly.

"Not now, silly." Sebastian kissed him again. "I'll be waiting for you."

Ciel smiled. "Good to know."

They heard footsteps approaching them, so Sebastian went back to cuddling the life out of Ciel. He stopped when Lau cleared his throat. "Did you find anything?" he asked.

"There was a note hidden inside the lining of the clarinet case," Lau said, giving a folded piece of paper to Sebastian. The artist unfolded it and looked at that one word written in Angela's neat handwriting.

It read, _'Sorry.'_

* * *

_**End**_

_of_

_Act V - Surrender_

* * *

_Stay tuned for the epilogue! Don't forget your reviews ;D_


	41. Epilogue - Reprise

**A/N: **Happy New Year! Have this epilogue.

**Epilogue -**

"_You are an impure man," Ash says one day when they are still each other's muse. He's lying on the couch, his notebook resting against his propped up knees, and he is using Sebastian's lap as a pillow._

"_Can't say I haven't heard that before," Sebastian answers._

"_I'm serious," Ash says. The pencil in his hand flies over the paper, sketching a figure with horns. Sebastian continues watching telly._

_That doesn't make Ash happy. He turns around, his sketchbook falling to the floor, his hands grab Sebastian's thigh unnecessarily harsh before he props himself up, intently staring at the raven-haired artist. "You think I'm joking. I'm not joking. I'm not."_

"_I believe you," Sebastian answers._

_Ash shakes his head. "There are other people who know that I'm right. Purity is what we all must attain. They understand that." He sighs. "It would be horrible if I couldn't save you from your own black soul."_

"_I don't mind," Sebastian says, just to tease Ash a little. He can hardly believe that there are people who fall for this silliness. "I can be Mephistopheles. And you shall be Dr Faust."_

_Ash stares at him. "I am in no need for your services."_

_Sebastian picks up the sketch that has fallen to the ground and waves it a little. "I believe you are."_

_Ash has drawn a demon. The demon is Sebastian._

_**OOO**_

"_I want to introduce someone to you," Aleister says with a wide smile adorning his lips. "He is a very talented sculptor, and he has expressed his wish to get to know you."_

"_Really?" Sebastian mutters. It's been a month since Aleister has become his benefactor, and he has attended four of his parties so far. He's tired of meeting new people, but he does it for his career. If it's an artist Aleister wants him to meet, then it's not that bad._

"_Yes, really." Aleister leads him into the room and looks around. "Ah, there he is." He waves. "Ash! Would you mind coming over?"_

_Ash._

_Sebastian stares as he sees the white-haired man emerge from the colourful mess of well-dresses people, a colourless blur that moves with almost predatory purpose._

"_Nice to meet you," Ash says as they shake hands and there is a strange light in his eyes. He leans in close. "Again," he adds, whispering it into Sebastian's ear._

_Sebastian has always seen himself as Mephistopheles. But in this moment he feels what it is like to stand before someone like him: The roles are reversed for this short second, and Sebastian wonders silently about Ash's definition of purity. The way the sculptor's so-called purity oozes out of every pore makes it seem like the filthiest goal that man could ever attain._

**OOO**

They visited their graves a few months after their deaths.

Aleister's grave was just as hard to visit as Ash's grave, but Ciel had told Sebastian to bring him to both graves, and Sebastian had not refused.

"It's really over," Ciel murmured. "The ones who tortured me have paid the price."

"Are you satisfied?" Sebastian asked.

Ciel hesitated. "Yes," replied. "Yes, I am." He reached for Sebastian's hand, his own small hand cold and clammy despite the summer heat.

"Let's go," Sebastian said.

And they turned their backs to the gravestones, shedding the skins of their pasts.

**- Reprise**

_Five years later, December 15th_

The sun was shining when Ciel parked his car in the middle of Sebastian's driveway without a care for the fact that there was a garage just twenty metres to his right.

Sebastian waited for him by the door, smiling when Ciel got out of the car and approached him with a wide grin. He was moving in with Sebastian.

Sebastian could have been happier, though. Ciel seemed intent on bringing Edgar and Maurice with him, and Gregory was also in the young man's car, looking out the window with a bored expression.

"Let's start the party," Edgar said when he got out from the car.

"It's eleven a.m.," Sebastian retorted. "There will be no party."

The other thing he was unhappy about was the fact that many other people had invited themselves into his house. There was Undertaker, William and Grell (engaged by now), Ronald, and Alois in his house. It was just a good thing that Claude had decided to stay back. He and Sebastian still weren't getting along, but Sebastian was able to live with that. Even Lau and his Ran Mao were there, along with Snake. Sebastian didn't feel very sure about having a criminal at his house and among his friends, but Lau had told everyone that he was 'running a business', and everybody who wasn't aware probably thought he was the chef of a brothel. That, however, was Ran Mao's fault, who had decided to appear in the shortest dress she had in winter.

Sebastian had to admit that he'd been surprised when William hadn't blurted out the truth.

"We didn't get to celebrate his birthday," Edgar said.

"Yeah," Gregory agreed. "You had him all to yourself that day."

"Well, there was a lot to catch up with," Sebastian muttered. Ciel threw him a poisonous glare. While they hadn't exactly waited that long, Sebastian was still glad that he could fully come out with their relationship now.

(Although he honestly doubted that his acquaintances hadn't guessed by now what had been going on behind closed doors.)

"Oh, I believe that," Edgar said, waggling his eyebrows in a very annoying way. "Tell me about it. All the filthy details."

Sebastian rolled his eyes. "Why, pray tell, are you so interested in my love life?"

"He's interested in everyone's love life," Gregory explained, shooting Edgar a sidelong glance. "Things that really shouldn't interest him as much as they do. He's not getting any. Maurice, do something about that."

Maurice flushed red at the last statement, but Gregory merely raised his eyebrows in inquiry, waiting for the comeback. Possibly for an agreement. He had practically been raised by Undertaker, after all.

"But I am getting a lot," Edgar said with a wide smile splashed across his face. The younger blond male next to him flushed a darker shade of red, trying to silence Edgar with no success at all. "You know, Maurice does this incredible thing with-"

"Those are things I do _not_ want to know," Ciel cut in.

Sebastian regarded him with a smirk. "What? Do you not care for tips?"

Ciel frowned at him, a blush staining his cheeks. "Who are you, Lizzie? We're not going to have small-talk about Edgar's love life, you hear me?" When nobody at all – less of all Sebastian – answered, Ciel rolled his eyes. "This is stupid. I'm going inside."

Sebastian watched the young male approach the house before he turned back to the other three in front of him. "Since you are here already, just get in. The others are here, too."

Edgar smiled widely and slung his arm around Maurice, pressing the younger male close to his body. Maurice had stopped working as a model the moment they had come back into the public, deciding to do something else. He was learning photography under Undertaker and Gregory, for which he truly had a talent, and Edgar who had resumed his career as a model usually insisted that Maurice take the first pictures during shootings so that he would learn faster. If they hadn't been co-dependent before the abduction, they definitely were now. And to a serious extent nevertheless. Edgar would only eat what Maurice handed to him and Maurice would panic when Edgar was gone for too long, but it seemed as if they were getting better. They were still healing, and their wounds were deep. They had been a lot worse when they had come out of Ash's house, wide-eyed and loathing to touch anyone but each other. Edgar had holed himself up in his apartment for six months, until Gregory and Undertaker had almost broken in the door, because Undertaker had really, really wanted to give Edgar 'Cheer up' cookies and go to the mall with him and Maurice.

Nobody ever mentioned Aleister or Ash these days. It wasn't a taboo, but they had talked about them enough during the month after they had been saved. Sebastian had quickly decided to move on, as he usually did when a (former) muse died, and after a while, Ciel had followed suit. Alois had simply become a lot clingier, following Claude everywhere, beginning from business meetings to interviews. Now that Alois had finished school, things looked grim for Claude in that aspect.

Inside the Michaelis estate, Ronald had brought along a few CDs ("This is real music!" he had shouted over the noise, and Sebastian had tried very hard not to call it trash), and he had decided to play them at top volume, letting harsh chords ring through the house. Ciel pulled a face.

"You wanted to celebrate," Sebastian said. "There you go."

"If it's going to be like that, I'm so going to go have cake with Lizzie," Ciel threatened, but surely he didn't mean it.

"You always forget that you dislike your cousin in moments like these," Sebastian said.

"I simply see the lesser evil in her." Ciel shrugged. "Compared to all of you, she's simply an angel that talks too much."

"CIEL!"

The musician flinched. "Oh, god. You didn't invite Soma and Finny here, did you?"

"I think I did," Sebastian said as the mentioned two appeared by the stairs, running so fast that Sebastian feared they would fall anytime soon. They didn't, and when Ciel realised that they wanted to glomp him, he turned to run away. He'd never been very athletic, though, and Sebastian laughed when Soma and Finny finally reached him, squeezing him as if their lives depended on it.

They were even crying. Sebastian didn't understand why, and neither did Ciel apparently, who gaped at them in bewilderment.

After Ciel had finally gotten rid of his two school friends, they all went upstairs together, where Undertaker was telling a rather embarrassing story about Sebastian. Sebastian hurried to shut him up. "Do you ever run out of stories like that?" he asked.

"Never," Undertaker asked. "Your little boyfriend should know what he's at."

"Just tell Gregory all the embarrassing stories about Undertaker," Grell suggested from the couch, practically lying on top of a very unhappy-looking William.

"I've heard them all," Gregory said, entering the room behind Sebastian. "They were funny," he deadpanned.

Grell and Undertaker burst into shrieking laughter. As he watched his redheaded partner, William's expression clearly said, 'Why the hell do I even put up with this person?' Sebastian couldn't help but ask himself the same thing. William was always very annoyed when it came to Grell and constantly ignored him, and Grell liked to make inappropriate comments about Sebastian's backside, preferably in front of his boyfriend, and yet they were going to get married in spring. Sebastian was going to be William's best man, and he still didn't know how _that_ had happened. William also didn't seem to want to remember this particular event when being asked about it. Sebastian still suspected that it had been for the family image's sake or something like that. William honestly approaching Sebastian about this because he liked him seemed too far-fetched, no matter their current truce.

Sebastian returned to the Michaelis family, though, and maybe that was why William had asked him to be his best man.

Ronald had lifted a very pliant Ran Mao from Lau's lap in order to dance with her to the loud music. They seemed to have a lot of fun, Sebastian thought, and somehow he liked it that people occupied this room in a large, lone house. He wouldn't be alone in this house anymore because Ciel was going to live here now, but the contrast to his life five years was quite harsh now that they had all grown impossibly close. Lau and Ran Mao would also find their place in the circle, even though they probably shouldn't mention their actual profession.

Lau, who didn't have anybody to occupy his lap, looked at Grell in a questioning manner. Grell got up, straightened, and said, "I can totally do that!" before letting himself fall into Lau's lap who nodded in satisfaction and continued sipping his tea.

"Why do we know people like this?" Ciel asked.

"I really don't know," Sebastian muttered.

"Ciel! CielCielCielCielCielCielCiel ! Let's dance!" Alois, despite being nineteen years old now, was pretty much still the very annoying fourteen-year-old that Sebastian had met. He pulled the younger male away, and Soma and Finny followed suit, all of them joining Ronald and Ran Mao. Ciel looked incredibly unwilling, but Sebastian figured that this was his standard expression when dealing with their friends, so he left them to it and sat down between Undertaker and William, who now was very Grell-less.

He looked even more constipated than when he had Grell around him.

Maurice had joined Gregory on the couch, and now that pretty much all of them knew sign language to various extents, he could converse with Gregory without any problems. Since the music was so loud, Gregory didn't answer verbally but also spoke with his hands. Maurice kept shooting glances towards Edgar who was also dancing with the others, and Edgar usually caught his glance, smiling deviously or reassuringly depending on his momentary mood, and Maurice – still very much the schoolgirl around his boyfriend - always looked away very quickly.

"We should do that every year," Undertaker piped up.

"Oh god, no," Sebastian said.

Later, when they had realised that it was late in the evening already, Undertaker grabbed his camera before anyone could go, focusing it on Ciel. Everyone else gathered around him, and Undertaker also joined before the flashlight went off. The snapshot was a pile of people grinning and/or hugging Ciel, who – alongside William – was the only one who looked unhappy. Even Sebastian could manage a formal smile despite the headache that his friends always left behind.

"We should do that again," he said when they waved at the last car leaving the driveway. Ciel's things had yet to find their places in the Michaelis estate, but he was nevertheless officially living here.

"Over my dead body," Ciel grumbled and Sebastian smirked. He put an arm around Ciel's shoulder and kissed his temple. "Are you always going to be this affectionate?"

"Sure," Sebastian said. "Why not?"

Ciel huffed and shook his head, but he was smiling.

**OOO**

The photo landed on the photo wall that had expanded over two walls of Sebastian's music room. Ciel would practise there every day, when he wasn't giving a concert in another country, and when Sebastian came to watch him, he would see the full lips curve at the ends as Ciel played in front of a vast amount of pictures.

Sebastian had once said he could love Ciel.

And, well, now he couldn't describe how he loved him. There were many portraits of Ciel in the house, painted in different styles, and many others that Ciel had inspired. His works were famous all over the world, but there were always some that he would never sell. Those would hang in his house, waiting for Ciel to notice them. And sometimes Sebastian would hear a melody that would only fill the rooms of the Michaelis estate; melodies painted by Ciel's violin, and Sebastian would sit down and lift a pencil to a sheet of paper, or maybe a brush to a canvas.

From now on he would always know what to paint.

* * *

_**Crescendo **_

_Fin_

* * *

_It's done! Finally. xD It did become a bit longer than expected. The finale didn't quite turn out the way I'd planned it, but it still has the original ideas, so I'm not going to change it._

_I hope you enjoyed this fic. Thank you, thank you so much for all your reviews and your favs and your alerts. They did keep me motivated. _

_And a shout out to my beta Carrie2sky. Thanks for your patience and for motivating me to keep writing this fic when I contemplated putting it down. _

_For now I just feel happy to say that this fic is off my table and here on ffn for you guys to read, enjoy and/or get angry at. I guess I did that quite a few times with this one, didn't I? XD_

_So. Tell me how you liked this chapter/this fic. Share your thoughts with me, you know I like it. I'll appreciate your reviews, each and every one of them._

_Bye!_


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